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A You-Pick ("U-Pick") or Pick-Your-Own (PYO) farm operation is a type of farm gate direct marketing (farm-to-table) strategy where the emphasis is on customers doing the harvesting themselves and agritourism. [1] A PYO farm might be preferred by people who like to select fresh, high quality, vine-ripened produce themselves at lower prices.
This strategy is not unique and has probably been around as long as farmers have grown more than they can sell at wholesale or consume on the farm. U-pick operations serve as an alternative selling method that, depending on the type of produce a farmer grows and the farm's customer base, it can supplement other marketing strategies. This strategy has several advantages:
As in any type of direct marketing system, potential customers must be identified. The means of doing this varies, from direct mailings to flyers or print advertising. The level of competition in the area can also dictate the types of crops and services producers provide. Owner-operators must identify the number of similar farmers in the area and the type of crops they produce and services offered, so as not to flood the market. One strategy to avoid this is by planting or harvesting crops at different times or extending the season in greenhouses or hoophouses to help prolong the harvest season and possibly increase the number of customers still looking for locally grown fresh produce. In addition, special services or products can be added to the business operation to gain market share. Some examples are baked and cooked foods, landscape services, plants, flowers, seeds, herbs, and homemade crafts. [2]
Other disadvantages of u-pick marketing are:
In the United Kingdom, customers are encouraged to pick their own, but not consume produce while picking. Sampling is generally allowed while out on the fields, but Pick-Your-Own (PYO) farms charge customers by the weight of produce they have picked. Some PYO farms charge a small refundable deposit on entry to discourage a minority of customers from eating produce without paying. Many farmers still pick for the market, while the public can enjoy themselves in the same fields. PYO was very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, when there was a season for fruit, but has declined in popularity now that the global market can provide the same fruit for most of the year.[ citation needed ] In the 2000s there has been a revival in local foods, and PYO has benefited from this. Pick-your-own strawberries were pioneered in the UK by Ted Moult in 1961.
Vegetable farming is the growing of vegetables for human consumption. The practice probably started in several parts of the world over ten thousand years ago, with families growing vegetables for their own consumption or to trade locally. At first manual labour was used but in time livestock were domesticated and the ground could be turned by the plough. More recently, mechanisation has revolutionised vegetable farming with nearly all processes being able to be performed by machine. Specialist producers grow the particular crops that do well in their locality. New methods—such as aquaponics, raised beds and cultivation under glass—are used. Marketing can be done locally in farmer's markets, traditional markets or pick-your-own operations, or farmers can contract their whole crops to wholesalers, canners or retailers.
Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch.
Community-supported agriculture or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system closer by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming. The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.
A farmers' market is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or outdoors and typically consist of booths, tables or stands where farmers sell their produce, live animals and plants, and sometimes prepared foods and beverages. Farmers' markets exist in many countries worldwide and reflect the local culture and economy. The size of the market may be just a few stalls or it may be as large as several city blocks. Due to their nature, they tend to be less rigidly regulated than retail produce shops.
A hedge is an investment position intended to offset potential losses or gains that may be incurred by a companion investment. A hedge can be constructed from many types of financial instruments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, insurance, forward contracts, swaps, options, gambles, many types of over-the-counter and derivative products, and futures contracts.
A marketing board is an organization created by many producers to try to market their product and increase consumption and thus prices. It can also be defined as an organization set up by a government to regulate the buying and selling of a certain commodity within a specified area. They most commonly exist to help sell farm products such as milk, eggs, beef or tripe and are funded by the farmers or processors of those crops or products. Marketing boards often also receive funding from governments as an agricultural subsidy. The leadership and strategies of the marketing boards are set through votes by the farmers who are members of the board.
A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under 0.40 hectares to some hectares, or sometimes in greenhouses, distinguishes it from other types of farming. A market garden is sometimes called a truck farm in the USA.
Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy, in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while satisfying the needs of consumers for products related to natural resources such as biotechnology, farms, food, forestry, fisheries, fuel, and fiber.
Mechanised agriculture or agricultural mechanization is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated, motorized equipment and machinery, to perform agricultural operations. In modern times, powered machinery has replaced many farm task formerly carried out by manual labour or by working animals such as oxen, horses and mules.
Booker T. Whatley was an agriculture professor at Tuskegee University, Alabama, and a pioneer of sustainable agriculture in the post-World War II era. He also aimed to "generate an agrarian black middle class".
A marketing channel consists of the people, organizations, and activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It is the way products get to the end-user, the consumer; and is also known as a distribution channel. A marketing channel is a useful tool for management, and is crucial to creating an effective and well-planned marketing strategy.
Christmas tree cultivation is an agricultural, forestry, and horticultural occupation which involves growing pine, spruce, and fir trees specifically for use as Christmas trees.
Benin is predominantly a rural society, and agriculture in Benin supports more than 70% of the population. Agriculture contributes around 35% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and 80% of export income. While the Government of Benin (GOB) aims to diversify its agricultural production, Benin remains underdeveloped, and its economy is underpinned by subsistence agriculture. Approximately 93% of total agricultural production goes into food production. The proportion of the population living in poverty is about 35.2%, with more rural households in poverty (38.4%) than urban households (29.8%). 36% of households depend solely upon agricultural (crop) production for income, and another 30% depend on crop production, livestock, or fishing for income.
Value-added agriculture refers most generally to manufacturing processes that increase the value of primary agricultural commodities. Value-added agriculture may also refer to increasing the economic value of a commodity through particular production processes, e.g., organic produce, or through regionally branded products that increase consumer appeal and willingness to pay a premium over similar but undifferentiated products. It can also be described as the process that transforms the raw agricultural product into something new through packaging, processing, cooling, drying, extracting, and other processes that change a product from its original raw form. As a result of this transformation, the customer base of a product and revenue sources for the producer are expanded.
A farm shop, or "farm stand" in the United States, is a type of retail outlet which usually sells produce directly from a farm. Some farm shops also resell related goods such as locally produced groceries, foods, drinks and delicatessen products.
A foodshed is the geographic region that produces the food for a particular population. The term is used to describe a region of food flows, from the area where it is produced, to the place where it is consumed, including: the land it grows on, the route it travels, the markets it passes through, and the tables it ends up on. "Foodshed" is described as a "socio-geographic space: human activity embedded in the natural integument of a particular place." A foodshed is analogous to a watershed in that foodsheds outline the flow of food feeding a particular population, whereas watersheds outline the flow of water draining to a particular location. Through drawing from the conceptual ideas of the watershed, foodsheds are perceived as hybrid social and natural constructs.
Farm gate marketing or farmgate sales describes a direct marketing method whereby farmers sell agricultural produce—mostly food—directly to the consumer, to restaurants and caterers, and to independent retailers. Farm gate sales are a common type of marketing found throughout traditional small farming sectors worldwide and, in some countries, account for the vast amount of sales as far as foodstuffs and livestock are concerned.
The Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation, usually known as ADMARC, was formed in Malawi in 1971 as a government-owned corporation or parastatal to promote the Malawian economy by increasing the volume and quality of its agricultural exports, to develop new foreign markets for the consumption of Malawian agricultural produce and to support Malawi's farmers. it was the successor of a number of separate marketing boards of the colonial-era and early post-colonial times, whose functions were as much about controlling African smallholders or generating government revenues as in promoting agricultural development. At its foundation, ADMARC was given the power to finance the economic development of any public or private organisation, agricultural or not.
This glossary of agriculture is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in agriculture, its sub-disciplines, and related fields, including horticulture, animal husbandry, agribusiness, and agricultural policy. For other glossaries relevant to agricultural science, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of ecology, Glossary of environmental science, and Glossary of botanical terms.
Fresh (wet) markets occur in most towns and villages in Benin, usually surrounded by large numbers of small shops selling foods, consumer items, imported foods and goods, clothing, household goods, etc. With a large portion of the population producing much of their own food, particularly for starches, open markets are where the diet is rounded out with items not self-produced. For those with higher incomes, more of the food consumed is purchased at market. Most vegetables are in villages and town markets, which usually have a major day, or multiple days, where traders and retailers are active in selling perishables in particular. Fish, meats, staple starch crops, legumes, soy and milk cheeses, fruits, and vegetables are available in the market every week of the year in most places with significant variations in the quantity supplied. Staple crops are usually sold to retailers by wholesalers, who obtain them from the producers. Meat is sold by the butchers who source from the producers. The source of vegetables depends on the season. Regional trade keeps a selection of vegetables available, with price and quantity fluctuations depending on the season. Visits to markets in the Parakou and Nikki areas observed avocados from Lomé in Togo and red onions from Niger. Eastern border markets have many Nigerian traders coming into Benin to purchase fruits and vegetables for sale in Nigeria. Most of these transactions are not captured in either of the countries' statistical records. Vegetables traders/retailers obtain their products either from the intermediary traders or directly at the farm gate if possible. For many items there are unwritten agreements that producers will sell to retailers, not directly to consumers. Intermediaries buy at the farms and transport the products directly to their various market destinations. Women dominate the role of vegetable retailers at these open markets. Vegetable producers market much of their produce in bulk at harvest time because of the highly perishable nature of their products. In general, producers conduct all of their sales immediately after harvest. The long marketing channel of vegetables in the larger peri-urban and urban areas involves several types of intermediaries, from local traders to wholesalers. Studies by INRAB have shown that producers are more inefficient in marketing than in production. There is a lack of market participation of farmers and current barriers to entry by farmers limit their access to markets.