For Market Managers

What's Happening?

Furthering the efforts to make every day an Earth Day, MIFMA participated in the Green Street Fair in Plymouth, Michigan, which welcomed 125,000 visitors to learn about all things “green.”

MIFMA Members Aileen Cowan, Lisa Hale, “Cousin Don” Hobson, Dan Keane, Laurajeanne Kehn, Sher Watkins and Dietrich Bronner staffed the MIFMA booth, promoting farmers markets, “fielding” questions about organic farmers and CSAs and encouraging consumers to visit their Market. Thank-you to all these volunteers! We hope we encouraged a few visitors to join MIFMA as members, and we hope you and your market join MIFMA if you aren’t already a member, to help move farmers markets forward. Join MIFMA today!

For Market Managers

The Michigan Farmers’ Market Association is available to help Market Managers with issues that may come up while getting started or in their daily operation. Some tools and resources that will help answer some of your questions, as well as provide new ideas for the established market are:

MIFMA Market Manager Frequently Asked Questions

Rapid Market Assessments
Periodic assessments can help determine what shoppers like about the market and what changes they might like to see as well as provide attendance and spending estimates. “Tools for Rapid Market Assessments” is a guide available through Oregon State University.

Michigan Rapid Market Assessments Season List: 2005, 2007

Main Place Market – Zeeland Michigan (1.92mb .pdf)
Pavilion on Court Downtown Farmers’ Market – Gaylord Michigan (142kb .pdf)
Downtown Saginaw Farmers’ Market (170kb .pdf)
Flint Farmers’ Market (19.2mb .pdf)

Resources
The Michigan Farmers Market Association has a listserv for Market Managers. Sign up on the listserv to participate in discussions on topics ranging from market promotion ideas to help with big challenges. To join the listserv, send an email to listserv@list.msu.edu with this command in the body of the email: SUBSCRIBE farmmktmi your name. You will be sent a confirmation message with instructions on how to activate your subscription. To unsubscribe from the list, send an email to listserv@list.msu.edu with this command in the body of the email: SIGNOFF farmmktmi

The ATTRA Farmers’ Markets Marketing and Business Guide(.pdf)

The Famers Market Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Seniors. Also known as FMNP and SFMNP.

The New Farmers’ Market by Vance Corum, Marcie Rosenzweig and Eric Gibson. New World Publishing. California. 2001. $24.95

The Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market Expo is held every December in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seminars on farmers’ markets are part of the educational program.

Michigan State University Extension has expertise in various disciplines related to starting and operating a farmers’ market. If an agent in your counties office is not able to help you, they can connect you to an agent in another office or on campus.

Three publications are available from Project Fresh and Michigan State University that provide fresh produce information for shoppers: “How to know what’s in season” (159kb .pdf), “Get Fresh Cookbook” (1.11mb .pdf) and “How Much Should I Buy?” (3.02mb .pdf). These publications can be ordered in bulk. The “How to know what’s in season” flyer is also available as a display board for the market. For information on how to obtain these materials, contact the webmaster at marketmaster@anr.msu.edu

Market Rules that Work (.pdf) is an insightful article about developing practical rules for farmers' markets.