Your Farmer Shops Local, Too: Why Small Businesses Need Each Other

thecropstopfarm
Aug 23
5 min read

This week, Crop Stop went to the farmers market, but not as a vendor.

We went as a customer. You can check out our video footage of this visit on our Instagram page.

After spending part of the day preparing microgreens for our latest CSA deliveries, we headed over to the Parsippany Farmers Market to visit some of the fellow vendors we have gotten to know this season.

This time, there was no tent to set up, no table to arrange, and no Crop Stop products to sell. We brought a shopping bag instead. And, we filled it.

We picked up products from some of our favorite small businesses, including handmade personal care products, cookies, dried fruit, barbecue sauce, olives, and a few other market finds. It was fun to experience the market from the other side of the table, but it also reminded us of something important:

Supporting local should go both ways.

There Is a Person Behind Every Table

One of the things you quickly learn when you become a farmers market vendor is just how much work happens before customers ever arrive. The market may open at 3 p.m., but the vendor's day started much earlier. Farmers have been growing, harvesting, washing, and packing. Bakers have been mixing, baking, and packaging. Makers have been producing, labeling, and organizing inventory. Everyone has loaded a vehicle, driven to the market, unloaded, assembled a display, and hoped that people will stop by. And, that is before considering everything that happened during the weeks, months, or even years required to build the business itself.

When you shop at a small business, there usually is not a giant corporation sitting behind the product. There is a person. There is someone who created it, grew it, baked it, bottled it, designed it, or packaged it. There is someone who will probably remember that you bought it. After becoming vendors ourselves, we see those tables differently now.

Your Farmer Is a Customer, Too

We talk frequently at Crop Stop about the importance of knowing your farmer.

But, farmers are consumers, too. We buy food. We buy household products. We eat cookies. We need gifts. We discover products that make our lives a little easier or more enjoyable. And, when there is an opportunity to purchase those things from another small business, we want to do that when we can. That does not mean every single thing we purchase will always come from a local business. That would not be realistic for most people, including us. Instead, we believe in being intentional.

Maybe you buy your lettuce from a nearby farmer this week. Maybe your barbecue sauce comes from the vendor you met at Saturday's market. Maybe you discover a local baker whose cookies become your new favorite. Maybe you purchase a handmade product from a business operating only a few towns away. One purchase might seem small. To a small business, it often isn't.

Farmers Markets Create More Than a Place to Shop

Farmers markets are often described as places to buy fresh, locally grown food, but after participating in them, we have come to appreciate that they serve another purpose.

They create connections.

Customers meet farmers.

Farmers meet makers.

Makers meet bakers.

Vendors discover one another's products, recommend each other to customers, share information about upcoming events, exchange ideas, and sometimes become friends.

A collection of individual small businesses begins to function like a small ecosystem.

That matters because strong local communities are not built by one successful farm, one popular bakery, or one thriving small business. They are built when many small businesses can exist alongside one another.

Community isn't a marketing strategy. It is infrastructure.

Local Dollars Can Have a Local Story

When you purchase something from a large national retailer, you usually know very little about what happens after the transaction. Small businesses make that relationship much easier to see. When Crop Stop purchases something from another market vendor, we know whose table that money went across. We know the person standing behind it. And, sometimes, that vendor turns around and purchases something from another vendor. A farmer buys a cookie. A baker buys vegetables. A customer who came for produce discovers a local sauce company. A vendor tells one of their customers about another farm down the aisle. The same market visit can support several businesses. That is one of the reasons we believe local food systems are about much more than geography. They are about relationships.

We Want Crop Stop to Be Part of an Ecosystem, Not an Island

Our long-term vision for Crop Stop has never been to become the only place our community needs to shop. Quite the opposite. We would love to see more people growing food in their backyards, more small farms serving their neighborhoods, more makers building businesses from their skills, and more opportunities for people to purchase food and products from someone they actually know.

There is room for all of us. Our community needs farmers who grow things we don't grow.

It needs bakers.

It needs makers.

It needs artisans.

It needs entrepreneurs with ideas we never would have thought of ourselves.

And, those businesses need customers. Sometimes, those customers should be us.

Support Small. Grow Community.

You do not have to completely change where you shop to support your local economy.

Start small. The next time you visit a farmers market, walk the entire market before you leave. Stop at a table you have never visited before. Ask the person behind it what they grow or make. Try something new. Learn their name. If you love what you purchased, tell somebody else about it. Follow their business online. Tag them when you use their product. Go back the next time you see them.

These actions may seem insignificant from the customer's side of the table. From the small business owner's side, they can mean quite a lot. This week, Crop Stop wasn't behind the table. We were walking in front of them, shopping bag in hand, supporting some of the people who have spent this market season alongside us.

Because supporting local doesn't stop at our farm.

Support small. Grow community.