Grow Your CSA Online

by Dan Livingston Though the internet has the potential to help grow a business, many farmers have trouble finding the most effective ways to utilize their time and energy online in order to get the best return on their efforts. Wholeshare (www.wholeshare.com) is an online marketplace for local and sustainable foods that allows groups of … Read More

Using Software to Help Build and Support Local Food Markets

by Kim Mills, Sue Rau, Jason Evans, and Jim Ochterski In this article, we draw on our experiences with two local food markets operating with Local Food Market Software to describe how software can be used to help build and support a local food market. Schoharie Fresh (http://www.schohariefresh.com) is an online consumer retail market in … Read More

Using Photographs to Market Your Farm

by John Suscovich We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, by that math, you can write a 10,000 word article about your farm in ten photographs. Wouldn’t it be nice to easily show your customers just how awesome you are without having to write a novel in your “free time”? … Read More

Online Distribution Channels for Farmers

by Rebecca Heller-Steinberg and Laura Hobbs Are you looking for a new method to market your farm products? Recently, a group of farmers, Extension staff, and community members in Tioga County, NY joined together to evaluate more efficient methods for farmers to get products to consumers. The group is currently looking into online market models … Read More

Doubling Local Food in Vermont

Vermont Farm to Plate (F2P) Network unifies business, government & non-profits to scale up local food production & consumption by 2020 by Rachel Carter The Vermont Farm to Plate (F2P) Network is relocalizing food production and distribution in a statewide collaborative effort to rebalance the food system. A network of over 160 organizations encompassing all … Read More

Faces of our Food System: Red Rabbit

by Becca Jablonski For the fourth profile in a series highlighting distributors of New York State farm-grown products, I spoke to Rhys Powell. Rhys is the Founder and President of Red Rabbit, located in New York City. Red Rabbit was founded in 2005 “to fix the school food system”. According to their website, they do … Read More

What Makes Vermont’s Award-Winning Cheese Engine Run?

by Martha Herbert Izzi Vermont holds the brass ring as the premier state hosting the most artisan and farmstead cheese makers per capita in the country. Not bad for a little place with a lot of rocky hillside farms and barely 650,000 people. As the cheesemakers expand and improve, the prizes keep coming, the sales … Read More

Wanted: Infrastructure Real and Virtual

By Beth McKellips When I first moved to Madison County in central NY, I was surprised to learn that very few farmers were selling products in the NYC market. In my fresh perspective, connecting upstate farmers to NYC seemed like a fairy tale waiting to happen.  Madison County had rolling hills that were not being … Read More

Home Grown Cow: An Easy Way to Get Into Online Sales for Meat, Poultry, and Cheese Producers

By John Aikman “Where did you get these steaks?  They’re fantastic!”  is the usual reaction from friends from out-of-town to eating beef at my dinner table in South Central Wisconsin.  Some of these dinner guests have even asked me to mail meat to their homes in places as far away as Miami and Atlanta because … Read More

Faces of our Food System: Garden Gate Delivery

By Becca Jablonski This article is the third in a series highlighting distributors of New York State farm-grown products.  For our third spotlight, I spoke to Marlo Capoccia, the Owner of Garden Gate Delivery, located in Ithaca, New York. I wanted to feature Garden Gate as they recently made the decision to shift their business … Read More

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