Marketing Locally Grown

View the project final report

Commodities

• Additional Plants: native plants, ornamentals

Practices

• Crop Production: double cropping
• Education and Training: farmer to farmer
• Farm Business Management: marketing management, market study, value added
• Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management
• Sustainable Communities: infrastructure analysis, new business opportunities, partnerships, public participation, community services, social capital, social networks, sustainability measures

Developing innovative marketing practices can be one of the most challenging aspects of farming today, especially for small growers. To address the weakness, this project will embark on a consumer marketing campaign to encourage local shoppers to buy from local farmers and ranchers. The project team will run newspaper and radio ads that highlight local producers and their products. The ads will explain how to identify locally produced foods and offer reasons why shoppers may want to pay a few cents more to buy them. Fact sheets distributed at large chain and independent grocery stores will educate shoppers, and participants will try to persuade grocers to stock more locally produced foods. A “buy local” logo will help shoppers identify products. After 12 months, a survey will gauge shopper awareness of the campaign, changed buying behavior and logo recognition.