I've been contemplating starting a blog for a while. There are several farm blogs out there that I read that I've found really helpful such as this farm in Vermont and this farm closer to home. Blogging seems like a great way to connect with everyone off the farm and get feedback on some of the many farm problems that need to be solved. The flip side is that once you start blogging, you need the discipline to keep it up--something that can be hard to find after spending a long day fixing leaking watering systems in the rain and cold.
Blogging hits on a theme that is a major tenet of what we hope makes this farm work: direct marketing. The basic idea behind direct marketing is that you cut out the middleman by selling food directly to customers, allowing the farmer to keep more of the profit and also allowing eaters to stay connected to their food. Most of the food grown in this country is marketed wholesale, which works on the concept that food is a commodity that can be bought and sold in large quantities and then sold through big retailers. Farms that wholesale can afford to take a bit less of the profit because they make up for it on volume and often through cheap labor. The other big savings is on advertising: they let those big retailers worry about it.
A small farm that direct markets has to spend a lot of time and effort on advertising and finding customers, something that a lot of farmers aren't inherently good at. Most farmers would rather be working in their fields than working a booth at a farmer's market. On this farm, we're going to strive to find efficiencies that work for our scale, and I have a hunch that there is some room for creativity in finding the optimal marketing technique for our farm. If blogging is a good fit, then I'll keep it up, but I'm committed to flexibility and if I go down the path of poor blog discipline, I'll search for a solution that works better for me.
Jeff
Blogging hits on a theme that is a major tenet of what we hope makes this farm work: direct marketing. The basic idea behind direct marketing is that you cut out the middleman by selling food directly to customers, allowing the farmer to keep more of the profit and also allowing eaters to stay connected to their food. Most of the food grown in this country is marketed wholesale, which works on the concept that food is a commodity that can be bought and sold in large quantities and then sold through big retailers. Farms that wholesale can afford to take a bit less of the profit because they make up for it on volume and often through cheap labor. The other big savings is on advertising: they let those big retailers worry about it.
A small farm that direct markets has to spend a lot of time and effort on advertising and finding customers, something that a lot of farmers aren't inherently good at. Most farmers would rather be working in their fields than working a booth at a farmer's market. On this farm, we're going to strive to find efficiencies that work for our scale, and I have a hunch that there is some room for creativity in finding the optimal marketing technique for our farm. If blogging is a good fit, then I'll keep it up, but I'm committed to flexibility and if I go down the path of poor blog discipline, I'll search for a solution that works better for me.
Jeff
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