The Minnesota Department of Agriculture, through the Minnesota Grown initiative, has partnered with FM360 to help alleviate the cost of their collaborative metrics service to provide farmers markets with the metrics they need to make more informed decisions and better articulate their value to the local food system. FM360 is unique in that it captures data from every angle of a farmers market using different types of surveys tailored to each of the three dynamic stakeholder groups which make up a market: vendors, customers, and managers. Collecting and analyzing data in a standardized way makes it comparable across markets and more valuable at both the individual market level and at aggregate regional levels. The FM360 approach and survey tools have been co-developed with collaborating farmers markets in Minnesota since 2016.
This new partnership aims to make market data collection as accessible as possible to as many markets as possible, increasing equitable access to these important metrics. Specifically, MN Grown will cover half of each market’s rate this season and there is still time for your market to participate! The FM360 team is so grateful to MDA/Minnesota Grown for supporting these efforts to provide markets with the best, most useful metrics possible. This opportunity is available to markets on a first come first serve basis so reach out to Joe Nowak (nowak129@umn.edu) as soon as possible for more information and to discuss next steps.