Grown Locally by Family Farmers - a Powerful Marketing Message

[Guest guest]

Got this off another list I am on and figured some folks might be

interested. Its a nice success story! I remember when these folks were

just a once a week market at Union Square!

 

*Smile*

Chris (list mom)

http://www.alittleolfactory.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Corner Post #324

Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed

 

" Grown locally by family farmers " was the first choice of more than 75

percent of consumers in an Internet survey. The Leopold Center for

Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa has tested prototypes for food ecolabels

-

seals or logos indicating that a product has met a certain set of

environmental and/or social standards. The study found that the term

locally

grown, when combined with family farmers, appears to be a powerful

marketing

message.

 

No wonder New York City's Greenmarket Farmers Market is such a success.

In a

couple of decades a project begun as a once-a-week market at Union

Square in

Manhattan is now an agency with 42 markets in 31 locations throughout

New

York City. At least 20 of the markets operate year round; the flagship

market in Union Square now operates four days a week, and 1/3 of markets

are

in low income areas where malnutrition and obesity are endemic.

 

Last week, Tom Strumolo, Greenmarket's director, spoke to the Second

Annual

Local Food event sponsored by the Toronto Food Policy Council and

Caledon

Countryside Alliance. He described Greenmarket as a unique service to

New

York City, both in structure and accomplishment. Those accomplishments

include:

* Fresh food for a quarter million customers per week during the peak

season;

* A nutrition program for low income families worth almost a million

dollars

per year;

* Over 105 restaurants supplied with fresh ingredients each week;

* Student educational tours three days a week;

* Donation of 500,000 pounds of unsold food to food banks each year;

* 20,000 acres of farmland close to the city kept in production; and

* a group of family farmers succeeding in spite of globalization.

 

The Greenmarket structure is unique. It is a program of the Council on

the

Environment of New York City, a privately funded citizens organization

in

the Mayor's Office. Greenmarket trains market managers. For the farmers,

staff takes care of the nitty-gritty details of approvals for new sites,

relationships with community boards, weekly advertising, publicity

events

and arrangements for accepting credit cards, food stamps and nutrition

vouchers.

 

Most significantly Greenmarket has branded their markets as " locally

grown

by family farmers. " Middlemen, resellers or brokers are thus excluded

from

their 42 markets. With few exceptions, all items must be grown, raised,

foraged, caught, or otherwise produced by the seller. Greenmarket staff

members routinely visit and work with the farmers to improve displays,

identify new ethnic crops and to make sure that what they sell at market

is

grown or raised on their farms.

 

Greenmarket Farmers Market in New York City is an economic success --

proof

that locally grown by family farmers is a powerful marketing message.

__________

" Ecolabel Value Assessment: Consumer and Food Business Perceptions of

Local

Foods, " can be found on the website of the Leopold Centre:

www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubinfo/papersspeeches/ecolabels/ecolabels.html.

For information on the Second Annual Local Food Event visit:

www.caledoncountryside.org/LocaldFood.htm.

For more information about Greenmarkets Farmers Market visit:

www.cenyc.org/HTMLGM/maingm.htm.

 

Elbert van Donkersgoed P. Ag. (Hon.) is the Strategic Policy Advisor of

the

Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post has been

heard

weekly on CFCO Radio, Chatham and CKNX Radio, Wingham, Ontario since

1997.

Corner Post has an email r list of more than 3,000 and appears

regularly on @g Worldwide Correspondents at

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[Guest guest]

Hi Christine

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

> " Grown locally by family farmers " was the first choice of more than 75

> percent of consumers in an Internet survey. The Leopold Center for

> Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa has tested prototypes for food ecolabels

 

This is a fantastic success story and one that I think is becoming a global

phenomenon, particularly as more people reject GM foods and look for

alternatives that will help to keep money within their own communities.

 

Vicki