Business Opportunities for Farmers in Southeastern Michigan

We wanted to pass along these items for farmers located in southeastern Michigan – both are excellent opportunties to showcase and promote your local food products! Please note both have mid-July due dates on the application process.

Grant Opportunity for Local Farmers and Food Producers

Farmers, owners of food-related businesses or those aspiring to enter the industry are eligible to apply for grants from the Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP). Applicants must produce food as a living (not as a hobby) for local markets in Southeast Michigan and established food co-ops may apply as a group. Grant amounts will range between $500 and $2,000. The deadline for applications is July 13, 2009. Funding for these grants is made possible from the Michigan Regional Skills Alliance (MiRSA) of Michigan's Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth (DELEG) and will be distributed by FSEP. FSEP is a nonprofit organization that exists to catalyze change in the food system of Southeastern Michigan.

The grant brochure containing the application form and instructions can be found at:

http://fsepmichigan.org/news/Grant_Opportunity


August Select Michigan Farmers Market at Eastern Market, Detroit!

This market will be held Thursday, August 20, 2009 in Shed 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Eastern Market. This market has space for 48 vendors who produce and sell Michigan specialty and non-specialty crops. There will be limited space available for prepared foods. For vendor information and application forms, please see contact information below. Vendors interested in reserving space for the market must fully complete an application and biography form, indicating "none" if a question does not apply.

Please mail, fax, or email completed forms by July 10th to:
Erin Groeb
Michigan Department of Agriculture
P.O. Box 30017
Lansing, MI
Office: 517-373-2469
FAX: 517-335-0628
email: groebe@michigan.gov

Use Twitter to Market your Local Food

Do you sell your produce at multiple farmers markets? Have customers that wait all year for the first strawberries of the season? An innovative way to let customers know where you are, and what you are selling is via Twitter, a free social networking service that allows you to send text based posts of up to 140 characters. The messages are called "tweets" and those who subscribe to receive your posts are called "followers". You can restrict your tweets to a group of followers, or you can allow open access. The key to a successful marketing message using Twitter is to be friendly, clear and to the point - you only have 140 characters to get your message across!

Example messages would be:

Teresa's Great Garlic is ready!! Expect some in this week's CSA share. Call us if you want to purchase extra garlic 734-123-4567.

We'll be at the Winthrop Farmers Market today from 8:00 a.m. until noon! We have beautiful fresh cut flowers today only!

Today's the last day to register for the Local Food Festival! You can register on-line at (enter web site name).

Once you start using Twitter, you should use it consistently to keep your followers informed, but be careful not to overuse the service - one complaint that users have is that some tweet too frequently about trivial things and undermine the impact of their messages. How will you know if your Tweets are successful? The service lets you monitor how many followers you have - your followers should grow and sales should increase!

Celebrating 15 Years of Organic Farming!

Michelle and Danny Lutz of Maple Creek Organic Farm are celebrating their 15th year of organic farming with their CSA members. To commemorate their anniversary, Michelle and Danny made a special offer last year-the first 100 members that signed up and paid in full received a special 15th anniversary Maple Creek Farm tote bag.

We are proud to be Maple Creek CSA members and wish Michelle and Danny a Happy Anniversary and a successful growing season!

The Lutz's are not only great farmers, they are excellent marketers. Their delivery truck displays their name, phone number, logo and location. Their on-line tools include a well designed web site that offers current and potential members information about their CSA program, on-line sign-up and payment, photos of the prior season's weekly shares, recipes, forums for members to communicate and share information, and a Maple Creek Farm cookbook to purchase. Michelle writes a blog and the farm is on Facebook, an on-line social network that helps you connect with others. If you are a CSA farmer or direct marketing your produce to customers, you may want to visit www.maplecreekfarm.com and see their successful marketing tools in use!