Image from University of Minnesota Extension
The University of Minnesota (U of M) Extension is offering a free online class to farmers and farm operators that want to learn how to better sell directly to consumers.
Ryan Pesch, the Ag Business Management Educator at U of M Extension and teacher of the classes, thinks that both new and seasoned farm operators can benefit from attending,
“If somebody is completely new to selling direct to consumer, I hope that they kind of hit the basics and walk away with a plan that they can employ here in 2024. But certainly there’s a lot of operator’s who’ve done marketing direct to consumer, and I think they would make new insights into how they would go about that in the next season
There are major differences for farmers selling direct to consumer compared to traditional commodity selling.
When selling the traditional ways, farmers are generally stuck with the price based on how successful the auction or contract is.
Farmers selling direct to consumer have to find the price that the market will buy for, as well as turning a profit for themselves.
Pesch encourages operators to attend, saying that,
“There’d be no harm in attending the class series. It’s geared towards people even considering going into direct to consumer, and if they choose to pursue it or not, that’s great. You might have saved yourself a lot of stress, time, energy, and effort of getting into something that maybe you’re not positioned to get into right now. And that’s fine, I’d consider that a real success.”
The class will consist of three sessions, happening February 6th, 13th, and 20th at 6 p.m.
Each session will be about an hour long, and there is also an associated workbook that will be available for farm operators to apply the knowledge to their own operations.
Click here to check out the class.