Farmer-To-Consumer Marketing

1978

National Agricultural Library

Direct marketing of agricultural products is not a new phenomenon. It is the original, purest type of food distribution. As soon as the first city became a reality, there existed a market for agricultural produce at a place away from the production location. Personal selling by the grower gave way to a distribution network that evolved through various stages of small shops to the modern 30,000- square-foot supermarket. In recent years, however, a reverse trend seems to have emerged. For reasons ranging from the economic 'direct farm-to-consumer marketing is the only way to lower food food [sic] prices' to the nostalgic 'it smells like the country... I feel like I'm in another time', consumers are returning to shop at direct-marketing outlets.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service