Market Garden - Business

Business

Farmers selling to the wholesale market typically receive 10-20% of the retail price, but in direct-to-consumer selling they receive 100%. Although highly variable, a conventional farm may return a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (US) per acre ($0.03/m² to $0.30/m²), but an efficient market garden can be in the $10,000-15,000 per acre ($3/m² to $5/m²) range, or even higher. On the other hand, there is a practical ceiling on how large a market garden can get, based on this model, but with conventional farming, quite vast areas can be farmed because access to a direct market is not a requirement.

Larger market gardens often sell to local food outlets, including supermarkets, food cooperatives, through community-supported agriculture programs, at multiple regional farmers' markets, to fresh food wholesalers, and any other higher-volume channels that benefit from buying a range of vegetables from a single supplier, their freshness allowing for a premium over the revenue from the supermarkets, and frequently, other local suppliers as well. By mixed crop production, a larger market garden can thus maintain a sales alternative to the wholesale commodity-style channels often used by farms specializing in high volumes of a limited number of crops.

That market gardening tends to rely on cities for its markets, can have its drawbacks, however. For example, in England, south Sussex was famous for growing tomatoes for the London market, with delivery by train to get the produce to market. The arrival of railways in the 19th century at first stimulated growth of market gardens in certain areas by supplying quick access to the city, but this also eventually led to commuting residents moving to the area, turning many market garden areas into suburbs. Urban sprawl still eats farmland up in urban regions today. This problem was solved in Suffolk County, New York by buying the rights to develop farmland from the farmers.