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

Farm Stops are year-round, every-day markets that support small-scale farmers and strengthen local and regional food systems. They do so most often by operating on a consignment model, in which the Farm Stop gives the local producers they work with 70-80 percent of the retail price, while taking a small percentage to maintain operations. This gives producers a fair price for their goods, flexibility with their personal time and product offerings, and ensures they sell through Farm Stop locations, instead of directly to them. The purpose of this research is to understand the ways in which Farm Stops help to generate or strengthen resilient, local and regional food systems, specifically via the cultural and social values they instill. To do so, this project surveyed the customer base of four existing Farm Stops across the United States, and conducted informal interviews of each of the four Farm Stop managers and owners. Results indicate that Farm Stops have a strong presence in the communities they serve, that they help individuals feel they are contributing to the development of a local food economy, and that they increase the long-term resilience of communities. Resilience refers to a community’s ability to sustain themselves during and after crisis events, such as national economic downturns or global pandemics (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). This data outlines the ways in which Farm Stops support the generation, or maintenance, of resilient, local and regional food systems by encouraging individual participation and by providing a reliable, year-round sales outlet for small to mid-size producers. This research highlights the need for Farm Stops, and serves as an introduction to a guidebook on how to develop Farm Stops in any locale. Future iterations of this research may include analyzing over 40 interviews collected from the four Farm Stop locations that participated in the surveys for this project.Master of Science (MS)School for Environment and SustainabilityUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/174107/1/Barr, Katie_Practicum document 2.pd