multiplier effect of farm markets

JOHN OSULLIVAN (johno@aurora.ncat.edu)
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:37:31 -0500 (EST)

Several people asked that I pass along the answers I got on my question
posted a couple of weeks ago. I asked if anyone had information on the
multiplier effect of local farm markets. I asked that question because I
remembered some statement somewhere that money spent in certain autarkic
communities might circulate within the community for 7 or 8 times before
being spent outside the community. This was in distinction from other
communities which wanted to be more autarkic but did not show this
multiplier effect but immediately spent a dollar received back out of the
community.

I received half a dozen or so responses. There was strong agreement that
it all depends. This makes sense to me but doesn't really help with
promoting and justifying farm market development and gaining support from
local governments. In North Carolina for example we have four large
"farmers markets" run by the NC Dept of Agriculture. These are located in
or near cities and are on interstates. We have local community farmers
markets spread across the state from near to cities to very rural sites.
We have up scale roadside stands and we have under a tree direct sales.
Each of these might have different impacts.

We had one market open last year in the town of Jacksonville. The farmers
there took WIC produce vouchers. Over the summer they got $10,000 worth of
these vouchers and estimated them to be 25% of the business so we can
estimate market income to the 6-8 growers as approximately $40,000. Now we
will have to explore further the buying habits of those marketers so as to
be able to estimate the social value of the market.

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John M. O'Sullivan
Farm Management & Marketing Specialist
Southern Region SARE PDP Management Team Member
North Carolina A&T State University
P.O. Box 21928
Greensboro NC 27455

tel (336) 334-7957
fax (336) 334-7207
email johno@aurora.ncat.edu

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