Completed Project Report


Financial Check-Ups for Farmers’ Market-Plus-Wholesale Vendors

  • Award Amount: $46,919
  • Regional Center: North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2019 Education Projects
  • Project Director: Helene Murray
  • Email: misamail@umn.edu
  • Organization: Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture

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Project Overview

This project assessed marketing risk and financial risk for MN vegetable producers who were attempting to diversify their marketing mix. Ryan Pesch from University of Minnesota Extension conducted one-on-one interviews with 17 vegetable farmers to collect their financial data and develop financial benchmark reports for market vegetable farms in Minnesota. Vegetable farm financial data has been historically difficult to obtain in Minnesota because the farms tend to be small and part-time. These benchmarks are a valuable contribution to improved vegetable farm financial data in Minnesota.

This project took place within the context of a larger project to develop and test a farmers’ market-based model for aggregated sales of farmers’ products. That project ended 2020 with 7 markets involved. Farmer financial data collected in this project as well as farmers’ market data collected from the larger project will inform other markets and vendors considering similar enterprises. The gross margin calculator we developed will enable farmers to test scenarios to increase their margins from farmers’ market and hub participation. More details about the performance of hubs and vendors is available in “Farmers’ Market Hubs Sales Summary, 2018-2020,” which is available for download on the farmers’ market hub project web page: https://www.farmersmarkethub.org/what-we-learned/

Number of Participants: 27

Outcomes

Project Steps

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

There are no promotional materials available for this project.

EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

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DELIVERY AREA

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