Posts Tagged: direct marketing
Marketing Meat: Why It's Not Quite That Simple
Note: This post was adapted from my Foothill Agrarian blog. I've read a number of Twitter...
Challenges for Direct-Market Meat Production
Direct marketing, for some farmers and ranchers, can be a way to capture more of the consumer...
The Social Farmer
Many of you have experienced the long, isolated days of the farm. The work that we do as small, family farmers is often the work of one. And while we'd love for it to be the work of many (many hands = light work + more fun) the financial realities of our businesses do not always allow for work parties. Here's a thought: share the experiences of your farm day with your community through Social Media. Sharing a quick photo of the broken belt of your flail mower or writing a short note about the heat of summer is not the same as real-time human contact. It is, however, another avenue of social encouragement from colleagues, friends, and oddly enough, strangers. You deserve to feel a connection to the broader community that supports the work you do.
The benefits of social media are numerous. On a personal level, sharing through social media adds a creative element into your day and an opportunity for you to let others know about the life you lead as a farmer. Social media can help you to connect with the community of eaters that support your farm, many of whom are often eager for a deeper connection to the food they eat and the farms that produce it. Social media is a great way to connect with other farmers as well, both here in your own backyard, around the country and even internationally. Share the technical aspect of your work. Other farmers DO want to see a picture of that new irrigation header you just built or the insulation in your walk-in cooler.
Another very useful benefit of social media is the automatic record keeping that occurs alongside your social media posts. Just planted your next radish succession? Take a picture, post it, hashtag it so you can find it later, and voila- you've just make a very accurate record of a farm event. Just made a beautiful bouquet of today's best blooms? Take a picture, post it, hashtag it and you've just made a record of flower availability for years to come. These farm records are not a pile of partially filled out charts crowding your inbox; they are a beautiful, chronological display of your farming activities, easy to access, and stored on the internet for all, foreseeable time.
A note of caution: be mindful of what you make public on the internet. Try not to over share your life. Choose posts and photos that are both useful to your farm as well as interesting to the people that follow you on social media. Remember that people you don't know and may never meet will see your posts.
There are many platforms to choose from and the majority of them are easy to use from your smartphone. Twitter and Instagram are applications that were designed specifically for hand-held devices which means they are very appropriate for farmers to use in the field. A great thing about many of these social media sites (Instagram and Twitter in particular) is that they are fast and dirty (kind of like farming, except for the fast part) and won't take much time out of your busy day. A blog is a great way to tell your farm story, but it is also a considerable time commitment. It will take a few minutes to snap a photo and post it to the internet.
Whether it is through photos or words, tell us the story of your farm. We should all pause more often to appreciate the wonder, beauty, intensity, hilarity, pain and grit of our daily work.
Check out what some of our Placer and Nevada county farmers are doing on the World Wide Web:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Fork-Farm/446566642072107
https://twitter.com/flyingmulefarm
http://instagram.com/localyolk?modal=true
https://www.facebook.com/FoothillRootsFarm
http://instagram.com/dinnerbellpaul
http://www.pinterest.com/littleboyflower/
https://twitter.com/DinnerBellFarm
https://www.facebook.com/HillviewFarms.ca
Back to Basics
I recently read an article by Colorado rancher Richard Parry, published in the April issue of The Stockman GrassFarmer. Mr. Parry has been direct-marketing his grassfed lamb for a few years longer than we have - I believe he has around 700 ewes that graze on his 1100 acres near Ingatio, Colorado (in the southwestern part of the state). He starts out by saying:
"Over the last several years, I've become convinced that being stuck in the middle scale-wise is incredibly challenging. While I've written about this struggle numerous times, I've never written as concisely or as eloquently as Mr. Parry. "You are," he says, "somewhere between a real business and a self employed Mom and Pop operation. There is never enough money or enough time." By contrast, small operations subsidize their living expenses with off-farm jobs. "You believe in the benefit of what you are doing," he writes. "Because of your belief system, it is worth it.... You have little time and money to spare, but you persevere."
Parry talks about reassessing his farm's assets - his "unfair advantage." In his case, his family decided that it was the fact that they owned "1100 acres of verdant green irrigated pastures that [are] one of a kind in our dry southwest climate." While their livestock operation is going back to a commercial (as opposed to direct-market) approach, the Parry's are "selling the view" - developing agricultural tourism enterprises to compliment commercial sheep and cattle production.
Given our own struggles to come to terms with the challenges of scale, I can imagine that Mr. Parry and his family also resisted the decision to shut down the direct marketing part of their operation. However, his article ends on a positive note. "Fox Fire Farms still has all the livestock.... What has changed is that it is back to low cost, commercial production." Partly because of our ongoing drought, we're headed in the same direction this year - we don't anticipate direct marketing any meat from this year's lamb crop. Parry concludes, "A correctly structured commercial livestock enterprise has a lot going for it, not the least of which is time for life's other priorities." I find this statement especially encouraging as I head out to check sheep before driving to town to watch my oldest daughter's varsity soccer match.
In some ways, the changes at Flying Mule Farm have been forced on us - by the dry winter and by the economic realities of mid-scale livestock production. These last several years have been stressful, as regular readers of this blog will no doubt acknowledge. Mr. Parry's article has helped me realize that we haven't been alone in this struggle. His ability to make positive changes to his operation that allow him and his family to make "time for life's other priorities" is incredibly reassuring and liberating.
Over the coming weeks, I plan to share some of our thought processes regarding our own "unfair" advantages and what they mean for the future of our business. I hope my handful of readers will weigh in with their own insights and experiences! Thanks to Richard Parry for stating the obvious: "Everyone does not have to be a direct marketer of meats."
Marketing Academy on February 15th and 16th
On Friday and Saturday, the 15th and 16th of February, the UC Cooperative extension here in Auburn will be hosting a Marketing Academy which will cover topics ranging from increasing sales at farmers’ markets, to learning about wholesale marketing.
The first workshop (Friday, February 15th, 1-4 PM) will focus on using health and nutritional information as marketing tools to help boost product sales. In the past several months, we at UCCE have been producing nutritional cards for various crops, and distributing them when we do tastings at farmers’ markets. We have seen a tremendous response to this type of marketing and education, and want to ensure that farmers learn about this process and how to incorporate it into their sales operations.
We will kick off Saturday, February 16th (8-Noon), with a workshop about increasing sales at farmers markets. So much of this has to do with relationship building, creating a visually appealing stall, and, of course, brining your best product to market. Most farm operations can always do better in one or more of these aspects, and many farms can improve in all three. This workshop will give practical tips and tricks to help boost those sales.
To conclude the Marketing Academy, on Saturday the 16th (1-5PM), we will have a workshop entitled “How to Break into Wholesale.” This workshop will provide information for growers new to wholesale, as well as for those with some experience with wholesale sales. Farmers markets, as we all know, each have a limit in the volume of sales. Wholesale venues give access to larger markets and the potential for a greater volume of sales. For some operations, wholesale marketing is the key to becoming financially viable. At this workshop, farmers will learn the “ins and outs” of selling to several wholesale buyers, who range from a small local grocery store, to a wholesale distributor.
The importance of marketing in a farming operation should not be understated. Any farm depends as much upon production as it does upon marketing. From choosing an appropriate display for a farmers’ market, to deciding whether or not to engage in wholesale marketing, these decisions have profound effects on the viability of a farming operation.
Come and learn more about marketing and ways to improve your strategies for the impending farming year. For more information and to register for these workshops, click here: http://ucanr.org/sites/placernevadasmallfarms/?calitem=180483&g=22527