Purpose

The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 directed the US Secretary of Agriculture to report on the profitability and viability of beginning farmers and ranchers. Many beginning operations use local food markets as they provide more control, or a premium over commodity prices, and beginning operations cannot yet take advantage of economies of scale and subsequently have higher costs of production. Little research assesses the relationship between beginning farmer profitability and sales through local food markets. In this paper, the profitability implications of sales through local food markets for beginning farmers and ranchers are explored.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors utilize 2013–2016 USDA agricultural resource management survey data to assess the financial performance of US beginning farmers and ranchers who generate sales through local food markets.

Findings

The results point to four important takeaways to support beginning operations. (1) Local food channels can be viable marketing opportunities for beginning operations. (2) There are differences when using short- and long-term financial performance indicators, which may indicate that there is benefit to promoting lean management strategies to support beginning operations. (3) Beginning operations with intermediated local food sales, on average, perform better than those operations with direct-to-consumer sales. (4) Diversification across local food market channel types does not appear to be an indicator of improved financial performance.

Originality/value

This article is the first to focus on the relationship beginning local food sales and beginning farmer financial performance. It incorporates short-term and long-term measures of financial performance and differentiates sales by four local food market type classifications: direct-to-consumer sales at farmers markets, other direct-to-consumer sales, direct-to-retail sales and direct-to-regional distributor or institution sales.

中文翻译：

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通过当地食品市场销售对初级农民和牧场主的盈利能力影响

目的

2018 年《农业改进法案》指示美国农业部长报告初级农民和牧场主的盈利能力和生存能力。许多初创企业使用当地食品市场，因为它们提供了更多的控制权或高于商品价格的溢价，而且初创企业还不能利用规模经济，因此生产成本更高。很少有研究评估刚开始农民的盈利能力和通过当地食品市场销售之间的关系。在本文中，探讨了通过当地食品市场销售对初级农民和牧场主的盈利能力影响。

设计/方法/方法

作者利用 2013-2016 年美国农业部农业资源管理调查数据来评估通过当地食品市场产生销售的美国新农民和牧场主的财务业绩。

发现

结果指出了支持开始运营的四个重要要点。(1) 本地食品渠道可以成为开始运营的可行营销机会。(2) 使用短期和长期财务绩效指标存在差异，这可能表明推进精益管理战略以支持初期运营是有益的。(3) 以本地食品销售为中介的初创企业的平均业绩优于直接面向消费者销售的企业。(4) 当地食品市场渠道类型的多样化似乎并不是财务业绩改善的指标。

原创性/价值

这篇文章是第一个关注开始当地食品销售和开始农民财务业绩的关系的文章。它结合了财务业绩的短期和长期衡量标准，并通过四种当地食品市场类型分类来区分销售：农贸市场直接面向消费者的销售、其他直接面向消费者的销售、直接面向零售的销售和直接面向消费者的销售。 - 对区域分销商或机构销售。