Survey results from March 18- March 26, 2020. Note that most in the \u201cNo Loss\u201d category are not marketing at this point in the season. Of the respondents who are currently marketing, 57% have noted decreases, 18% have noted increases, and 25% have not had changes to sales.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMarket channels and customer demand<\/h3>\n
Direct vs. Wholesale trends, product<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Beginnings and overall desire for farmer based aggregation with some desire for help organizing these aggregation efforts<\/li>\n
- There is a shift in marketing channels to include more CSA, food delivery, no touch farm stands<\/li>\n
- Questions around how the tourist economy will be impacted and how this will affect sales<\/li>\n
- Anticipating weddings, events, on-farm workshops, on-farm dinners etc. being postponed or cancelled<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Marketing<\/h3>\n\n- Farmers want information on how to market if markets close and advertising in the time of COVID-19 (How to get produce to customers with little interaction?)<\/li>\n
- There is a need to increase marketing to reach new customers if consumers aren\u2019t coming to market and need for more \u201chow to market\u201d support<\/li>\n
- Ecommerce and increasing digital based marketing, online stores. Need for training here<\/li>\n
- Those who noted an increase in sales are primarily meat, egg, and dairy producers.<\/li>\n
- Traditiditionally, 59% of respondents direct market their products, 36% primarily sell wholesale, and 5% are processors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Labor management<\/h3>\n
Cash flow, workplace safety, unemployment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- There is a need for labor but a fear of not being able to pay them as well as health concerns (worry about employees staying healthy and how this will affect the workforce)<\/li>\n
- Support needed for paying for employees<\/li>\n
- Letting people go, un-hiring, reducing hours<\/li>\n
- Starting employees later to help with cash flow, matching production and workforce<\/li>\n
- Increase labor\/time to design and implement new systems and find new sales channels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Mental health<\/h3>\n\n- Mental health support needed<\/li>\n
- Strong fears of business closure and financial stresses across majority of farm responses<\/li>\n
- A lot, a lot of uncertainty<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
General needs<\/h3>\n\n- Farmers request updates on health practices and how to safely conduct sales<\/li>\n
- It is still very uncertain how this will affect the summer sales, supply chain and labor. Many suggest to resend out survey in a few weeks and a few months<\/li>\n
- Challenges finding sanitizers for the farm (mostly hand sanitizer to have at farmers\u2019 markets etc.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Examples of changes farmers have made<\/h3>\n\n- Over fear of supply chain issues, farmers are prebuying supplies<\/li>\n
- Farmers are increasing hand washing and sanitizing protocols on farms, social distancing employees at work<\/li>\n
- Not a positive one but multiple farms mentioned putting larger capital investments\/equipment upgrades on hold<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Maine farm community was faced with endless uncertainty. Questions about the stability of markets for the season, how much product to plant and plan for, the safety of farm families and crews, and availability of supplies for packaging products and keeping workers safe were all unanswerable and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":4378,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-withsidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4444","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/author\/"},"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4444"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5071,"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4444\/revisions\/5071"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/maine-farmer-resource-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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