Farmers Market Coalition

The Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) initiated a study of state farmers market associations in January 2009, surveying all known existing farmers markets associations in the United States. The data collected in this survey, which represents responses from 26 participating organizations, is available in a new summary report on the FMC web site. The purpose of the survey was to identify how FMAs are organized, how they operate and what they need to effectively address the needs of farmers markets in their respective regions. An additional goal was to identify areas where FMAs could benefit from professional development, peer-to-peer learning and other services offered by FMC.

Tags: farmers market coalition, information marketplace, state farmers market associations, survey, Wendy Wasserman

Earlier this year, FMC surveyed 26 state farmers market associations (FMAs) to better understand how they are structured, what they do, how they do it, and what they need to do it better. This was the first opportunity FMC had to formally survey this group, building upon a 2006 study conducted by Project for Public Spaces, and the results were telling. According to the survey, while FMAs are growing in number and emerging as valuable service providers across the country, they infrequently engage in networking and professional development opportunities that would enable them to effectively support their thousands of member markets and producers.

Tags: farmers market coalition, state farmers market association, Wendy Wasserman