• Successful markets are located in busy, central places and are well-publicized.
• Don’t deliberately or drastically undersell your fellow farmers. The more farmers and farm products at the market the more customers.
• A good market manager promotes the market and enforces its rules.
• Selling at a farmers market may provide contacts for other channels, such as special orders or subscriptions.
• Get feedback from your customers. You can learn a lot about what they find desirable - and what to grow next season.

• Upscale restaurants and speciality stores pay top dollar for quality produce and hard-to-get items. Accord to Eric Gibson’s “Sell What You Sow”, growers can expect a minimum of 10 percent over wholesale terminal prices for standard items at mainstream restaurants.
• Most restaurants buy in limited quantities, and sales may not justify the necessary frequent deliveries. Growers should line up buyers a year in advance and develop secondary outlets.
• Call buyers for appointments and bring samples.
• Meat producers can offer a variety of cuts, and even bones for soup stock, but most restaurants will want fresh products.
• Major selling points include daily deliveries, special varieties, freshness, personal attention and a brochure describing your farm and products.
• When planning your crop mix, talk with chefs and specialty buyers, who are constantly looking for something new. Successful restaurant sales depend on meeting the changing needs of your buyers.

6. Cooperative Marketing
By Jim Peterson, UNL Extension Educator

Some direct markets go it alone, but many find that teaming up with others shares skills and abilities, moderates the workload and minimizes hassles.

The benefits of marketing agricultural products with others also appealed to Janie Burns of Nampa, Idaho, who raises sheep, chickens and assorted vegetables on ten acres. A relatively small farmer, she is a large scale promoter of local food systems. With a SARE grant, Burns investigated whether a grower’s cooperative would help area farmers become more efficient and profitable, while offering their community access to fresh, sustainably grown vegetables.

“We went to every list of people involved in direct marketing”, Burns recalls. They surveyed 150 people within the Boise/Twin Falls area, which shares a similar climate and crops, about their interest and capabilities. Then they identified markets, such as restaurants, natural food stores, a cafeteria, a hospital and a school.

The Boise-area farmers agreed to form their own co-op under the name Idaho Organics cooperative, Inc. Now, the group has it down to a science. Every Sunday, co-op growers send lists of what they will have for delivery that week, including quantity, description and price, via fax, to their customers. Based on responses, the farmers harvest, then pool produce at a central location for boxing and delivery.

Cooperative marketing can be a great opportunity - or a headache. Here are some tips on how to make it work for you.

• The USDA Rural Development Business & Cooperative program offers information and assistance in setting up and managing a cooperative marketing effort. It’s a great place to start.
• Consider a marketing club, and informal cooperative that relies on using member marketing skills.
• Join a nonprofit farmer network group to share ideas and inspiration.
• Adequate market research and business planning are keys to successful cooperative marketing.

7. Nebraska Food Cooperative
By Jim Peterson, UNL Extension Educator
The Nebraska Food Cooperative is a marketing and distribution service designed to improve market access for farmer producers and local food access for consumers. Co-op members work together to operate the co-op, although there is no obligation to volunteer.

The co-op’s initial target service area is the eastern one-third of Nebraska. However, wherever sufficient numbers of members originate from in a geographic area, that area has the potential to be served by the co-op.

There are a number of reasons for producers to join the Nebraska Food Cooperative. They are as follows:

• Your farm will retain its identity. Your products, tomatoes for example, will be marketed as coming from your farm. The cooperative may offer for sale, tomatoes from 12 different farmers. The consumer chooses from whom they are going to purchase their tomatoes based upon quality, price and/or customer-farmer relationship.
• You may set your own prices for all of your products.
• You will benefit from the marketing activities of the Nebraska Food Cooperative.
• The cooperative will be operating in a market area with over 1,000,000 consumers.
• You will reduce the time and cost of marketing and distributing your products to consumers.
• You will be working alongside consumers and other producers from across the state to increase the awareness, availability and quality of local foods.
• You will have the opportunity to network with other producers and source other Nebraska ingredients that may be used to make additional value-added products that could be sold through the cooperative.
• A page of the cooperative website will be available for you to tell your story and detail your production practices. You can enter information and products onto the website yourself. The software provides a very user-friendly way to do this. However, if you would like assistance with this, help will be available.
• You may specify inventory amounts in your product descriptions. As product is ordered the inventory declines. When all of the product is sold the customer cannot order it.
• When you join the cooperative, you will receive a user name and password which will allow access to the administrative parts of the website you will need.

8. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
By Jim Peterson, UNL Extenison Educator
CSA, a marketing method in which members of a community invest in a local farm operation by paying up-front for a share of the harvest, has been growing steadily since it first appeared in the U.S. in the late 1980s. The community idea carries over into the farm itself, with members dividing the weekly harvest as well as the risk of crop failure. Moreover, most CSA farms invite members to learn more about their operations through farm visits, volunteer opportunities and potluck suppers.

No two CSA farms are alike. Most supply produce. They also might provide flowers, berries, nuts, eggs, meat, grain or honey. Farmers may ask members to come to the farm to pick up their shares, or they might deliver them to centrally located distribution sites. Families run some CSA farms, while others involve groups of producers to supply additional goods. Many CSA farms ask members to commit time and labor to the operation, which not only lowers costs, but also allows members to learn about what it really means to grow food.

Many CSA farmers produce weekly or biweekly newsletters describing the harvest and providing recipes. Others reach out electronically through listservs or websites.

When evaluating CSA as an option for your farm, consider:

• Your location. Can you find enough members? Can they drive to your farm; or do you need to establish community drop-off sites.
• Labor. Do you have enough paid support or volunteers to handle the extra jobs involved in CSA, such as packaging.
• Your willingness to sponsor events on the farm, publish a newsletter and provide other services that help customers feel connected to the farm.

9. Value Added Products
By Jim Peterson, UNL Extension Educator

In 1986, Earnie and Martha Bohner began making jam in rented facilities near their farm in southern Missouri. Since then, Persimmon Hill Berry Farm has built a processing kitchen to make value-added products, from jams to sauces. To create specialty items that would appeal to customers, the Bohners did their homework. First, they worked with a chef to perfect recipes for jams and barbecue sauce. Later, they sought ways to add value to shiitake mushrooms. After market research, including detailed cost comparisons, showed that freeze-drying on site would be prohibitively expensive, the Bohners decided to dry their fresh shiitakes off-site, then convert the high-value product into a top-shelf shiitake soup mix.

“The development of new products is something we work at all of the time”, says Earnie Bohner. “New farm products and enterprise help keep us interesting to our return guests and give our first-time guests more motivation to come and see us.” Today, their sales of value-added products accounts for 50 percent of the farm’s gross income.

Processing fruits and shiitake mushrooms allows the Bohners to use “seconds”, extend their marketing season and diversify their marketing outlets.

Value-added opportunities are everywhere. Examine your product and brainstorm about how processing might increase its value. Fruit growers can dry their product or make wines, juices, vinegars, spreads, sauces, syrups and preserves. Grain growers might create cereals and baking mixes. Dairy operators can bottle milk or make cheese, while livestock producers might sell dried meat or speciality cuts.

When you add variety to your product line, you increase the choices presented to your customers and your chances for expanding your sales volume.

Some things to keep in mind when contemplating value-added products:

• Consider projected costs and returns carefully before investing in specialized equipment for value-added products. Often it makes sense to work with a co-processor to test your market.
• Some of the best value-added items make use of by-products or seconds.
• Seek the experts. Consult with the Extension Office, Department of Agriculture or small business groups about packaging, processing and recipe development.

13. What should I do with my poinsettia now?
By John Wilson, UNL Extension Educator

Planning, Persistence Perpetuate Poinsettia Plants- Here are a few tips on how to keep that seasonal favorite, the poinsettia flourishing for use next year. The colored areas on a poinsettia are not the true flowers as many believe. These colored areas are actually modified leaves called bracts, the flower of the poinsettia are very small and insignificant usually staying on the plant though early January.

Once the bracts of a poinsettia begin to fade and revert to green (this is usually in late March or early April) they should be cut back until the plant is six to eight inches tall. Poinsettias will exude a milky sap when cut and may irritate tender skin, this sap is not poisonous as many believe but would cause much discomfort if swallowed. It may be a good idea to place a plastic sheet over the area where you are working.

Once you have cut the plant back it should be placed in a sunny location and allowed to dry down for a few weeks, watering when the leaves droop or the top of the soil feels dry to the touch and appears light brown in color. Once the buds on the stem begin to grow you should water on a regular schedule as well as fertilize.

In early to mid-June you should repot the plant into a pot that is one to two inches in diameter larger than the pot that it was growing in. If you use a pot that is much larger than that, the media will stay wet too long thus promoting root rot.

In mid-July the new growth should be pinched back an inch or two to keep the plant small and bushy, if the plant is overly vigorous it should be pinched back in late August. During the summer months you can set the plant outside in an area that has filtered light and minimal wind. If you do decide to do this, it should be climatized to the higher light levels.

One thing to remember is that plants are much like people. If someone goes outside in the middle of the summer and is not used to the high light levels they will sun burn as will plants. You should continue to water and fertilize on a regular basis. If you keep the plant outside in summer you should bring it inside before cool fall nights arrive.

Poinsettias are photo period plants. This means they flower in response to short days (actually long nights). In order to get your plant to rebloom, it needs 14 hours of continuous darkness each night, starting in mid- to late September. You can use either a cardboard box or a dark closet. Keep in mind that any light leak will delay flowering by several days each time light is allowed to break the dark period.

Each day the plant should be returned to a bright sunny location, and kept in an area that is around 65-70° F at night and 70-75° F in the day time. You should continue to provide 14 hours of darkness for eight to ten weeks, until small bracts begin to form. Once the bracts are formed the dark treatment is no longer needed, and your poinsettia is on its way to providing some festive color to your winter months once again.