Small Business Labs

Farmers Market Numbers Continue to Increase

National Farmers Market Week starts August 7th, so make sure to stop by your local farmers market and buy something.  This is getting easier because there are a lot more farmers than there used to be. 

As the chart below from the USDA shows, the number of registered farmers markets increased 16% in 2010 to 6,132.  This level of growth is expected to continue in 2011. 

  

The Wall Street Journal on The Rise of the Lazy Locavore

Fun article on lazy locavores in the WSJ.  We first wrote about this trend several years ago, and last year we became one.   

Locavores try to purchase as much food as possible from locally grown sources.  Locavores do this for a variety of reasons.  Local food is fresher, tastes better, is more likely to be organic and often (but not always) less harmful to the environment. 

The best source, of course, is a home garden.  But lazy locavores either don't have the skills or time to tend to their crops.  Instead, they use "urban sharecropers."  Key quote from the WSJ article:

... homeowners who lack free time or gardening skills are teaming up with would-be farmers who lack backyards. Around the country, a new crop of match-makers are helping the two groups find each other and make arrangements that enable both sides to share resources and grow their own food.

Many cities and towns have urban sharecroper services.  Sharing Backyards, which is mentioned in the article, is a good example.  They connect people with land to urban farmers. 

The locavore movement is part of the broader, multifaceted New Localism trend, which we discuss in the Intuit 2020 Report. 

We also cover the locavore movement and related local food topics in our Small Farms category.

An Economic Ode to the Great Plains

New Geography's Why the Great Plains are Great Once Again covers the economic success happening in many of the larger cities and towns in Great Plains. 

The article focuses on Fargo, ND, but also talks about the broader upper midwest - which has a very strong economy relative to most of the rest of the U.S.

The midwest is benefiting from strong food, commodity and energy prices.  The midwest also did not participate as much in the credit related housing bubble, so the credit bust has not hurt the region as much as other areas.  Costs - both living and business - are also much lower than most of the coastal U.S. areas. 

But as the article points out, it is not just commodity related industries that are doing well in the Heartland.  Technology firms looking for skilled labor and low costs are also starting to thrive in places like Fargo. 

I grew up in a small, midwestern farm town and admit to being biased towards the Heartland.  It's good to see good things happening there. 

More on the Growth of Small Farms and Local Food

Interesting article in the Washington Post on mobile slaughterhouses.  These are stainless steel "industrial facilities" on wheels that bring a butcher and federal meat inspector to small farms. 

There are only 1051 licensed slaughterhouses in the U.S.  Because of this, it can be very expensive for small farms to transport their herds to these facilities for processing.  Mobile slaughterhouses make this easier and more efficient.

The more interesting part of the article - let's face it, killing animals is not a hot topic for most - is the discussion on the shift at the Department Agriculture towards supporting small farms and local food.  Key quote from the article:

"Under the Obama administration and the 2008 farm bill passed by Congress, the USDA is shifting attention to small and mid-size farms, encouraging organic and sustainable agriculture, and investing in projects to bring locally grown meat and produce to consumers.

"There is unbelievable consumer interest in local agriculture that we haven't seen in decades," said Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. She is overseeing the agency's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program, designed to revive the processing, marketing and distribution networks that once made small farming viable but disintegrated in the last 30 years as U.S. agriculture went through a dramatic consolidation."

While small farms are not going to replace large farms anytime soon, the USDA is projecting that the market for locally grown food will be about $7 billion by 2012, up steeply from $4 billion in 2002.

We cover small farms and local food - part of the broader new localism movement - in our Small Farms category. 

Urban Farming Continues to Expand

The Globe and Mail has a nice article on Young Urban Farmers, a "Toronto-based start-up founded last year with a mission to not only turn a healthy profit, but to also encourage sustainable practices in households across the city."

The company installs 1.2 square meter garden boxes in the back yards of their clients.  The picture on the right is from the article and does a nice job showing the product. 

Young Urban Farmers charges for installation.  They charge additional fees if the homeowner wants them to maintain the garden.

The fees are quite reasonable - full service packages start at $695 per season.

While on the topic of urban farming, I want to mention Local Dirt.  It is an eBay-like website where you can find, buy and sell local food.  Restaurants and others use it to source local food; local farmers use it sell product. 

They have a nice tool on their homepage for finding local food, including listings of farmers markets.

Also related is the New York Times article City Slickers Take to the Crops, which covers the trend of agricurious urbanites vacationing by volunteering on farms. 

We're big fans of the small farm and local food movement, a key component of the broader new localism trend. 

Crop Mobs for the Agricurious

The New York Times continues its love affair with small farms and the slow food movement.  Field Report: Plow Shares covers crop mobs, which are:

"a monthly word-of-mouth (and -Web) event in which landless farmers and the agricurious descend on a farm for an afternoon..."

The article covers a crop mob of 50 that recently descended on the Okfuskee Farm in North Carolina to help with a wide variety of chores.  The lure is both farming and the opportunity to meet and commune with others who are agricurious.  Key quote from the article:

"The more tedious the work we have, the better,” Jones said, smiling. “Because part of Crop Mob is about community and camaraderie, you find there’s nothing like picking rocks out of fields to bring people together."

Alert readers will remember I grew up in a small farm town in Kansas.  Oddly enough, we never considered picking rocks out of fields entertaining. 

It's a fun article that highlights a number of trends we are following -small farms, slow food, new localism and the growing interest in sustainable products. 

Business Week on the Local Food Movement

BusinessWeek's excellent article Entrepreneurs Keep the Local Food Movement Hot covers the growing trend towards local food.  Key quote:

"Just as consumers focus new attention on what we eat and where it comes from, farmers, foodmakers, restaurateurs, retailers, distributors, and processors are rethinking the business models behind it."

As a former Kansas farm boy and current suburban farmer, this is one of my favorite trends.  We cover it often in our Small Farms category. 

Part of a broader new localism trend, consumers are increasingly looking to goods and services produced locally with local food being a major interest category. 

Local food has become so trendy that according to New York Magazine local farmers are becoming cult heroes and "New Yorkers are beginning to fetishize farmers the way we once did chefs."  Fetishize farmers???

The article references Community Food Enterprise, a good source of information on the local food movement. 

We're Joining the Slow Money Movement

The slow money movement had their first national conference a couple of weeks ago.  450 people from around the country showed up to discuss the concepts around slow money, slow food and small, local farms. 

Both Business Week and the Wall Street Journal covered the event. 

For those new to slow money, the event website describes the movement as:

"Slow Money.  It's a new economic vision.  It's an emerging network of investors, donors, farmers, and activists committed to building local food economies.  It's about the soil of the economy.  It's the beginning of the "nurture capital" industry."

The slow money movement has its roots in local, organic and sustainable farming.  But it is part of a broader trend towards creating and supporting local economies and businesses.  We've posted in the past on the coalition of consumers interested in buying local products.  We've also posted on the the growing locavore trend - buying locally grown food.  And we have a category on small farms. 

Emergent Research is pleased to report that we're joining this movement and adding farming to our corporate portfolio. 

Well, not really.  What we are doing is working with a local non-profit that is focused on urban farming.  We are providing them a section of our backyard to use to grow crops.  The crops will be sold at local markets to support the effort.   

In exchange for our land, water and a bit of financial support (I guess we are now nurture capitalists), we get some of the produce.  The non-profit's staff does the actual farming, but this former Kansas farm boy plans on helping.  To prepare, I bought the Green Acres DVD set. 

It should be a lot of fun and we will report on our progress.   

The image is from Your Backyard Farmer, an excellent site on community supported agriculture. 

Recipe Sites Cooking

Compete provides website data and analytics and their blog often has interesting nuggets of information.  A recent post covers the growing amounts of traffic online recipe and food sites are getting.  Key quote:

"Last month, people conducted 18 million searches that included the word “recipe,” more than a 50% increase in the number of searches from the year prior. Searches for “casserole” and “pasta,” both easy and low cost meal options, rose by 56%."

My mother served casseroles often.  The term still strikes fear in me. 

Here are the top recipe sites according to Compete:

     

College Cafeteria Food Trends for 2009

I ran across a list of the 2009 top 10 college food trends from food service company Sodexo.  Locally grown fruits and vegetables top the list.  Key quote from the Sodexo press release:

"The biggest change we've seen is in the demand for locally-grown produce and authentic international cuisine that is made to order,” said Chef Rob Morasco, Sodexo’s senior director of culinary support in the education market."

Local food and the growing number of small farms that provide local food is a trend that we've posted a lot on in the past. 

The top 10 list is:

Food Trends in 2009
1.   Locally-grown fruits and veggies
2.   Crispy garlic-ginger chicken wings
3.   Mac ‘n five cheeses
4.   Vietnamese Phß
5.   Green tea and pomegranate smoothies
6.   Crab cake sliders
7.   Mini samosas
8.   Tilapia Veracruz
9.   Goat cheese salad (with lavender lentils)
10.   Chicken Molé

My son is a freshman in college.  He reports that the food is pretty good.  I asked about food fights, which were fairly regular events when I went to college. 

He said they didn't have food fights and gave me the same look I used to give my parents when they asked stupid questions.