How to register your farm on MarketMaker
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EmailIncrease sales of farm products by registering your farm on Michigan MarketMaker and communicating the attributes of your products to your customers.
Over the past 20 years farmers have increasingly developed value-added products as a means to maintain or increase profits. Since the mid-20th century, farmers sold commodities in bulk to wholesale buyers. As farming returns declined, many farmers sought a means to capture more value from their production through activities that included providing transportation to deliver their commodities to wholesale buyers, installing packing operations to provide more retail-ready produce to wholesale buyers, adopting special cultural practices, etc. In doing so, they were able to maintain their farming operations and the benefits of those operations to local communities, including economic activity, provision of jobs, open space, carbon sequestration, water filtration, fresh produce, plants, etc. As the trend toward buying locally produced products continues, so does the importance of communicating to potential buyers the kinds of products and production practices of a farm.
MarketMaker is a web-based resource that provides a link between producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, restaurateurs, farmers’ markets, food service providers and end consumers in the food supply chain. The purpose of MarketMaker is to link customers interested in food products to the producers of those products. Customers – be they consumers, processors, restaurant owners, or wholesale distributors – can use MarketMaker to find you.
But if your farm is not listed on MarketMaker, potential buyers of your products may have a hard time finding you. So here is how easy it is for you to register:
- Go to Michigan MarketMaker
- Click Register/Log In.
- Click Register Your Business.
- Select Producers/Farmers from the drop down menu.
- Complete your business profile for the crops you produce and the way you produce them (look for the tabs at the top of the profile page for dairy, fruits and nuts, meat, vegetables, etc. so you have a complete profile of your farm).
Once you have completed your profile, click “continue” at the bottom of the page.
Additional features include adding photos of your farm and indicate if you are part of one of the groups on Michigan MarketMaker.
Complete the general business information section and the rest of your profile.
When you submit your completed profile, it will be reviewed to assure it meets the qualifications of a MarketMaker listing. This prevents inappropriate businesses from being listed. You will receive your user name and password in one or two business days via the e-mail you listed in your profile.
So why register? You will have access to your business profile so you can update it as your products and the seasons change. You can personalize your profile of your farm to communicate to potential buyers or customers exactly what you do. This will allow potential customers or buyers to find you more easily using the search functions on Michigan MarketMaker. And, most importantly, it’s free.
Michigan MarketMaker is supported through a partnership of Michigan agricultural organizations, including the MSU Project GREEEN, the MSU Product Center, the Nowlin Chair for Consumer-Responsive Agriculture, Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP), The C.S. Mott Chair, Michigan Food & Farming Systems-MIFFS, Washtenaw County Agricultural Council, and Greenstone Farm Credit Services.
