SARE 1999 Highlights

Organic Co-op Creates Marketing Opportunities for Rural Growers

Farmers in remote Connecticut locations will sell their products to the state's population centers through a new initiative banking on the appeal of locally grown goods. USDA Photo

A group of Connecticut growers looking for ways to increase profits banded together to form a cooperative marketing association, with immediate impact. Aided by a SARE producer grant, the new Certified Organic Associated Growers of Connecticut (COAG) laid the groundwork for a new distribution system that will enable them to co-market their vegetables, dairy and livestock products throughout the state. To inform customers about organic food, COAG undertook an educational campaign that included printing a consumer's guide and holding two organic-only farmers' markets. The first market drew 500 and rang up $3,000 in sales. "The market told us consumers will go out of their way to buy locally produced certified organic produce," says Tony Norris, COAG president. "They also find it important to be able to interact with the people who actually produce the food they eat." With the customer base identified, the group plans to begin cooperative marketing, such as trucking crops grown in more remote areas to markets in the state's population centers. [For more information about this Northeast Region project, go to www.sare.org/projects/ and search for FNE96-159.]

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