"Have a meeting for farmer on how to organize cooperative markets & 2 people will come.Maybe I missed the point of the above, Markess, but in our area, tell farmers how to make money fast (Joel Salatin, for example) and you'll fill the hall. Offer to tell people how to heal the earth and create foods of higher quality at the same time and very few are interested. Take the BIODYNAMIC CONFERENCE for example: right down the road from the BD Conference were TWO of the most famous organic farms in northern Virginia. Both heavily attended Salatin (i.e. one has 5 interns, the other 14 interns- almost all came for Joel), NONE attended the BD Conference. Like Merla, these folks were offered free passes so there would be no easy excuse to not attend at least portions of the conference. Although they all implied that they would be at the conference (heaven's - they didn't even have to cross the street!), none attended. We had a similar response to the Sustainable Ag video/discussion series. Very few interested in the philosophy and principles behind growing food in cooperation with Nature. A few of the big market people attended one of the presentations, but clearly just so they could find out who I was and what I could do for them in the short run.
Have a "class" on how to get 2 blades of grass instead of one & you had better rent a huge hall."
We got excellent exposure to the local farm community for all of these events. We have a N. VA farmer's discussion list, to which invitations and reminders were posted. I know the big mouths in local fruit and vegetable growing. No one attended, although the head of the market did make a reservation but eventually backed out.
I'm talking market gardeners in the US' 3rd richest county. Little interest in a larger crop. Little interest in better produce but a lot of interest in selling more at better prices.
My remarks above are in no way intended to malign Joel Salatin. His is the great synthesis: a way of farming that makes the land better and makes people more healthy while making more money for the farmer in a 9month work year. Catch him at ACRES this year, if you can.
Later
-Allan
