Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) recently released a case study of two long-standing producer marketing cooperatives. Over the course of more than two years as part of Northeast SARE Partnership Project ONE19-332, CISA provided in-depth support to Our Family Farms (OFF) and The Pioneer Valley Grower’s Association (PVGA), two cooperatives serving dozens of farms in western Massachusetts.
CISA’s project demonstrates how the partnerships and principals that drive producer cooperatives around economies of scale – like bulk supply purchases and shared facilities – can also be leveraged for marketing and distribution.
“Agricultural marketing cooperatives allow their members to work together on key activities related to marketing and distribution, rather than fulfilling these activities individually or relinquishing their products to a non-farm distributor or processor.”
Read the rest at Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
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