small farm central

Small Farm Central is designed as a low-cost solution that helps farmers get their message to customers effectively. At the heart of this system is the idea of templates. I think this is something that is foreign to many in the farming community, so I will attempt to clear up how templates work in Small Farm Central and how this makes it possible for us to offer sites at around $20/month instead of $1,500 and up that the market usually demands for custom-designed sites.

Small Farm Central sites are not custom designed unless you want them to be -- custom design is at an extra cost. Each site comes with a series of templates that you can access through the control panel. The control panel is an area of the site that only the owner can access by username and password and is where the site is controlled -- each farmer has access this area 24 hours a day so that changes and updates to the site can be made without contacting me or anyone else. There are currently four templates available to farmers, which would be very limiting except for the fact that each template can be further customized to reflect what is special about your farm.
 
This is the basic look of the Sky Blue Sky template.
Let's take the newest template, Sky Blue Sky (see the image to the above for a preview). This is a very general, soft look with photos that would work for many farm websites. But with Small Farm Central you can customize the header photo, the background image, and the right-hand column image in the control panel. See the screenshot below for how this works in the control panel. All you have to do is browse for the photo you want to use in your template and then upload it. Some farmers do this themselves and sometimes I help with the process because I understand that you a farmer not a computer geek.

Editing the Sky Blue Sky template.
Now, the next screenshot is of a customized "Sky Blue Sky" template -- same farm, same blog entries, but entirely different look through the use of the Small Farm Central templating system.

The Sky Blue Sky template with changes made from the control panel.
By making each site completely customizable (through the use of templates as evidenced here) and by employing the control panel (to put the control of your website in your hands, where it should be) prices can be kept very low as compared to a custom designed site that you must contact the web developer each time you want to make a change. I am very honest with farmers: since this is essentially a collaborative project where many farms are working together to pay for this website software solution, you do not always have the fine-grained control that you may have over a much more expensive custom designed site. As the project moves forward and gathers more input from member farms the sites are becoming more customizable.

One of our members, Broadened Horizons Organic Farm in West Roane County of Eastern Tennessee is currently working with me to get the exact look that they want for their website. For example, he was a bit unhappy with the current products portion of the site which allows each farmer to list what products they are bringing to market or have for sale. He wants more control to list what varieties are available and any other relevant information for each product. I agreed with him that the current products page was lacking flexibility and there is a plan to get his changes and more included in the next version of Small Farm Central.

I hope he would agree that while there is small loss in flexibility, there is a great gain in the amount of features that each site contains. From a dynamic photo gallery to file and categorize, to dynamic surveys, to a fully functional blog, and more. Also, in the very near future we will also offer a fully integrated ecommerce solution to allow you to sell your products on your website. I am very open to suggestions during the process as shown above in the discussions with Broadened Horizons Organic Farm.

I think it is difficult for farmers to wrap their heads around exactly what Small Farm Central is because it is outside of the realm of the way most people experience the Internet, so I hope this explanation of templates and a little on the control panel helps hint at how this all works. It may sound overly technical, but many farmers who have very few technical skills comment on how easy the control panel is to use once they get around it the first few times.

Sign up for a free demo of Small Farm Central today to get an even closer look at how it works.

Over the past few days, total page views on public Small Farm Central sites surpassed 200,000. This time last year, Small Farm Central was just a concept so it is very rewarding to know that farmers have been able to 'tell their story' so many times using the software.

I hope for many more hits and farmers. We can do great things together as a community if we learn how to work together without compromising the individual integrity of each small farm; I hope Small Farm Central is a part of the puzzle that keeps farms economically viable into the future.

I am currently designing an e-commerce extension to the Small Farm Central software and I'd love to hear what you want to sell online and how I can serve you with this system. I currently will  support the following sales types:

• Mail Orders: This is classic ecommerce that would allow anyone in the world to order your value-added, shippable products.
• Restaraunt sales: Each restaurant has a unique username and password to log-in to your store where you list products available during a given week. The chef can reserve and pay for the items online and then arrange a drop-off.
• CSA Share Sales: Each spring thousands of CSAs sell shares to members - allow your members to pay online directly through your farm website.
• Buying Club Sales: Your weekly customers can pick their items through an online system so they get exactly what they want instead of the classic CSA system. This one is the most unformed in my head and I am not sure exactly how it will work or what type of farm it could serve. I am talking to Neil Stauffer of the Penn's Corner Farm Alliance this week about his ideas because he wants to run a service like this in 2008.
  

Are there any other types of sales that you would like your farm to be able to make online? If you want to be involved in the design process, please make your voice heard and many of your requirements will go directly into the software.

We are using Google Checkout which will allow you to create an immediate trust with your customers that is extremely important with credit card sales over the Internet. We will never hold your bank account information or the credit card numbers of your customers - we will allow Google to do the heavy lifting (and security) in this situation. The buying process will be completely on your Small Farm Central site, but when the customer is ready to checkout they will be sent to a Google site to finish the checkout process and then a link will allow them to come back to your farm website.

We are excited to bring this new product to you and hope that there will be some input from the community. There are several existing Small Farm Central members who are driving the development so far, but there is room for more voices. Leave a comment or contact us to get involved. This service will be up and running for the Christmas rush.