by Callie Bowdish (12/10/95)
True cooperative marketing, where the farmers come together to sell what they grow to the public, could prove to be an important economic strategy for farmers. In California the direct marketing program is still in the birthing stages and now is at a crucial time to determine if it can work. Typically cooperative ventures get taken over by a few strong special interest people who have borrowing power. The money is used to leverage against the others and the few get a marketing advantage. Skill in growing does not give these special interest their marketing advantage. It is their ability to buy other farmers goods and sell them at a profit. This cycle, of investors out maneuvering farmers in the market place, I feel, can be broken if farmers learn to work together and sell their own produce as a marketing group. I don't see the strategy of farmers coming together as a group as a get rich scheme, but rather as a way for farmers to survive as small scale family and cooperative farms.
Insisting that the people selling in the markets be people who are producing their own crops, I feel, is a key to creating a healthy fair market place. The big question is whether farmers can work together. It is easier for a few moneyed people to use laws with their "gray" areas to their advantage than it is for a large group of people to use laws. It is hard for a group of farmers to develop legislature that help make a fair and honest market place. A relatively small amount of businessmen and people who do not spend hours working in the fields have an advantage over those who work with their hands. It takes a large amount of organization and commitment for farmers to work together and pool their resources. Farmers work long hard hours. Another difficulty is that it is easier to make a living selling produce that others sold. There is always the temptation for farmers to turn into investors and betray the other farmers. When people sell others products within this cooperative structure they have an advantage of not having to compete against other investors but only other farmers.
In California a Task Force has been meeting to try and determine how to insure the integrity of the Certified Farmers Market program. I feel that the only way this program can come to birth is if farmers learn to understand the necessity of working together. Investors and borrowers can always maneuver the market place to a place where the producers are at a disadvantage. I feel the only way to avoid the farmers from working for and at the mercy of the investors is for the farmers to have their own direct marketing program. Legislature with its laws will mean nothing if farmers don't realize it's importance, and insist that legislature and laws are followed. Laws on paper are nothing if people don't believe they are necessary. Laws on paper are nothing, if people continue to cheat and "sell out" for financial gain at the expense of others. The wholesome, honest farming lifestyle can only be possible if farmers learn how to participate in the market place successfully. My belief is that true direct marketing could help farmers to survive in the market place. The question is whether farmers can learn to work together to survive.
Callie Bowdish <cbowdish@sbceo.k12.ca.us> and her husband, John, have been market gardeners for over ten years. They grow flowers, herbs and vegetables on an acre and a half that they rent in Santa Barbara. They sell their produce year round at two of the Santa Barbara Farmers Markets, which are just ten minutes from their market garden. They have two sons. They are active in the SBFMA working committees and with the State's direct marketing program participating as a member of the State Agriculture Department's Farmers Markets Integrity Task Force.