Farm Stops: A New Way to Enhance Local and Regional Food Systems

FARM STOPS: A New Way to Enhance Local and Regional Food Systems

What is a FARM STOP?

Farm Stops are year-round markets and grocery stores that support small farms through a consignment-based business model that ensures local farmers get real value for their products.

For example, the Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, MI works with over 200 local farmers and producers. They give their vendors 70 percent of the retail price, and take a 30 percent commission of those sales to maintain their operations. According to the USDA 2022 Food Dollar Series (USDA, 2022b), on average, American farmers make 16 cents of the customer dollar spent in a retail operation. With stores like the Argus Farm Stop, farmers and producers set their own prices, own their products until they are sold, and make more money than an average retail sale. This not only gives small-scale farmers a fair wage year-round, but it also allows the farmers to manage their own inventories, and save time and labor from participating in farmer’s markets that are only open for part of the year. Thus far, in only eight years of operation, Argus Farm Stop has put over $10 million back into the hands of the small-scale farmers and producers they work with.

Read on to learn more about how Farm Stops enhance local and regional food systems, and strengthen communities: https://issuu.com/katbarr123/docs/farm_stop_report