Presentation and tradeshow at the Eco Farm Conference

Small Farm Central is taking a trip to Pacific Grove, CA for the Eco Farm conference at the end of this week (Jan. 23-26).

On Friday, I am giving a talk on web marketing for farms. This will not be a advertisement for Small Farm Central, just a general overview of how and why to get your farm online.

Here is the description listed in the program for the talk:

Tending Technology: How to Market your Farm with New Media
The Internet can be intimidating, confusing and time consuming, but a website can be an amazing asset to your farm. New media can save time, increase your visibility in the community, create paths for communication during the off-season, and encourage contact between farm customers. Learn quick and easy techniques for successful Internet marketing with email mailing lists, websites, e-commerce, and farm blogs. Find out how tending technology can take your farm to a new level.
Presenter: Simon Huntley, Small Farm Central, Pittsburgh, PA.

I will also have a table in the tradeshow, so be sure to stop by for a chat if you will be at the conference.

Press release: New Web Site Service Launched for Entrepreneurial Farmers

SPIN-Farming™ Teams Up with Small Farm Central

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SPIN-Farming, (www.spinfarming.com) has teamed up with Small Farm Central (www.smallfarmcentral.com) to provide ready-to-go websites that connect farmers with customers quickly, easily and inexpensively.

“SPIN-Farming calls for cultivating customers as well as crops, and that calls for a professional-looking web site,” says Wally Satzewich, the developer of the SPIN-Farming system. “But most farmers would rather deal with buggy potato plants than buggy software. Small Farm Central frees farmers to be out working their plots instead of sitting behind a computer trying to program their web sites.”

The SPIN-branded web sites can include everything “soup to nuts”, from photo galleries to blogs to recipes to mailing lists, but farmers can start out simply and add features as they see the need. No technical experience is necessary to run their sites on Small Farm Central.

“SPIN-Farming is helping to eliminate the traditional hardships of farming and is redefining it as an entrepreneurially-driven profession,” says Roxanne Christensen, Co-author of the SPIN-Farming online learning series. “It is only natural to be working with Small Farm Central to eliminate the complexities of web site development and help farmers harness the power of technology for direct marketing. Plus, Small Farm Central is in a great position to know what is working for farmers online, and they generously offer free tips and advice at their site.”

“Whether they farm in the middle of an urban jungle, on the suburban fringe, or as part of a large acreage in the country, each SPIN farmer’s story is a powerful online marketing tool. We at Small Farm Central understand their stories, and help them tell it, engage with their customers, and sell more through professional, active websites that promote the farmer-eater connection,” says Simon Huntley, Lead Developer of Small Farm Central.

ABOUT SPIN-FARMING

S-mall P-lot IN-tensive (SPIN) Farming is a non-technical, easy-to-understand-and inexpensive-to-implement farming system that makes it possible to generate $50,000+ in gross sales from a half-acre by growing common vegetables. It is organic-based and can be practiced on a single plot or multi-sited on several residential backyards or front lawns in urban or peri-urban areas. It is available via an online learning series at www.spinfarming.com.

ABOUT SMALL FARM CENTRAL

Small Farm Central provides inexpensive, professional web services to farmers across the country. An online control panel that farmers can access at any time takes the mystery out of farm websites and makes it a breeze to sell products, publish a blog, post photos, and more. Information about the Small Farm Central SPIN web service can be found at: http://smallfarmcentral.com/spin/welcome.

Contact:
SPIN-Farming
Roxanne Christensen
e-mail: rchristensen@infocommercegroup.com
phone: 610-505-9189

Google yourself

Seth Godin recommends that we start the year by running a Google search on ourselves.

How do you want your farm to be seen by customers who will idly search for you on the web? That search may come at a pivotal time in their local food life.

Let's say your small farm sells at farmer's markets. Picture a customer who has just started coming to the market and has bought food at different stands, but really likes your stand because you are friendly / organic / helpful / sustainable / tasty / attractive (pick one or more).

This customer is interested in your farm enough to remember the name, so they are sitting at work near the end of the day and they are considering a trip to the farmer's market that evening. They type your farm name into Google, not necessarily expecting anything to come back.

Do they find a professional, active website that explains the farm philosophy, encourages feedback, and gives the customer a view into the work that is done on the farm?

Does this fictional customer go to the farmer's market that evening? If so, what stand do they visit?

If you don't like what you see, plan what you are going to do about that in 2008. Start a blog, learn basic web design, or get a Small Farm Central site.

Photo by: asifthebes

Joel Salatin on relationship farming

This a great pep talk from Joel Salatin on the value of creating relationships with customers. This comes from the December 2007 issue of Acres USA magazine.

...farmers should be building relationships with customers. It’s a crying shame that farmers by and large distrust their customers. Farmers are rightfully dubious about the intentions of the grain elevator, sale barn or large processor/buyer. Rather than building a customer relationship, however, farmers feel isolated from their buyers at best, and a healthy animosity at worst.

Alternative marketing offers an antidote for this buyer-seller divorce. Many relationship-oriented marketing schemes exist. From Community Supported Agriculture to farmers markets to Internet sales to farmgate sales, all of these venues and more provide opportunities for farmers to build relationships with their constituency.

The immediate feedback about product quality, product type and product quantity creates not only accountability but also immediate encouragement. How many farmers receive praise and accolades from their customers? I noticed this most poignantly when our children were small and customers would tell them what important work their family did. “We depend on you for our food,” they would say.

Do you know what that does for the self-image of a child? In a day when farm kids routinely receive redneck stereotyping from their peers — farming, after all, is not cool like Dilbert cubicles — for ours to receive constant positive reinforcement was worth more than any amount of money. We don’t farm because we’re too stupid to do anything else; we farm because we love it and want to heal the world, and all the people in it.

Honoring and respecting our customers is part and parcel of the farm business. Most farmers do not even envision themselves as part of the food chain. They just see themselves as producers of raw commodities. Period. End of story.

And that is unfortunate. It dishonors the most noble vocation on earth, and the ultimate stewardship of air, soil and water. Building customer relationships, although challenging at times, is critical to creating a farm that can sustain itself long term.

There we are: soil, plants, animals, people, community and customers. Building relationships is the calling, the sacred ministry, of good farmers. How we massage those relationships determines our success and the degree to which we heal all the elements within our sphere of influence.

Let’s go build some relationships.

You can find the full PDF here.

I especially like the idea of "immediate feedback about product quality, product type and product quantity." This farmer-to-eater relationship is probably the biggest estimator of quality. The stronger your relationship with the eater the more care you will put into the growing of food. What comprises would you make in growing food for your children versus food that goes into an airplane for a foreign country?