Scott in the New Terra Farm Garden
My wife Suzie and I have been operating New Terra Farm for 10 years. Our ‘centerpiece’ business is an organic market garden organized on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model. The CSA model has a lot of advantages for a small farmer; early and advance cash flow, the ability to forecast demand and therefore plan and schedule production, and (perhaps most importantly) the ability to find out what your customers want!
Here’s the key: the onus of communication is on the one trying to get the message out. You need to actively plan how and when you will communicate with your customers.
We try to engage with our customers at every opportunity. For example, one of the decisions we made right from the start was to meet with every family that wanted to sign up for our CSA. We get to find out their likes and dislikes, their preferences for delivery, and also if they might want other goodies we sell.
We try to collect an e-mail address at this first meeting, and put folks on the mailing list for our e-newsletter. This lets us easily keep them informed about events on the farm, promote our products, and also to provide them little bonuses like recipes for some of the more unusual veggies we grow.
The final part of our ‘communication strategy’ is our annual survey. We mail a survey to every customer at the end of the season, and include a postage-paid, self-addressed envelope for them to return it to us.
We do a lot more with that survey than just ask ’so, how was it for you’? For example, when I was contemplating adding some new product lines to the farm, I first asked my existing customers if this was a product they used and might consider getting from us, and if so how much did they use. This is great first-hand market research.
I also used the survey to assess my customers’ ’sensitivity’ to the use of chemical pest controls in the garden. The vast majority of my customers responded by saying they much preferred a few ‘lacy’ leaves on their produce rather than ANY type of chemical, organic-approved or otherwise.
As a consequence we only use passive and preventative pest control methods (e.g. row cover) and the occasional spray of dish soap and water. By the way, this has the added benefit of removing my guilt if any of my veggies look less than perfect; the customer has made the choice!
Through all these means I am trying to convey to my customers that I really do care about their needs and wants; that New Terra Farm is THEIR farm, and I am just the custodian; and that the grower and the consumer can have a mutually beneficial relationship, an actual; a ‘win-win’ for all.
Is all this communication stuff work? Without a doubt. Does it pay off? Absolutely! I KNOW my customers have cut me a lot of slack when I have messed something up. They are a lot more tolerant and understanding of the crazy stuff that sometimes happens on small farms – e.g. the occasional mixed-up order, or late delivery. And a significant percentage of them have been with me right from the first season, even through a couple of the worst growing seasons we’ve ever seen.
My advice, take every opportunity to talk to your customers, find out what they want, then deliver it. If you do that you will have a pretty good shot at success on your small farm.
Author bio
Scott Kelland is the owner of award-winning New Terra Farm near Ottawa, Ontario and is the author of several books for small farmers including ‘Bootstrap Market Gardening’ and ‘How to Raise Meat Chickens’. He can be contacted through his website new-terra-natural-food.com.
Hydroponics Dictionary
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I would like to welcome and thank Scott for contributing original content to The Growing Edge site. Check out the web site of his farm and order his book.
I would add to his excellent post that connecting with your customers and finding out what they think and want is crucial to the success of any business. To often today, businesses just collect the money from their customers without connecting and creating a relationship with them.
If anybody else wants to be a irregular or regular guest author please contact me: tom at growingegde.com