Everyone Wants a Farmstand, But No One Wants to Be a Farmer

Farmstands are trendy right now. They’ve been popping up all over our area this summer. It sometimes feels like there’s a farmstand on every street in town, and in many ways, that’s a wonderful thing. It’s encouraging to see people becoming more interested in local food, trying their hand at growing it themselves, and looking for ways to buy directly from local producers. However, not all farmstands are what they appear to be.

A wooden roadside stand with hand painted signs and baskets of vegetables certainly portrays the idea that products have been grown by the owner with love and care, but consumers shouldn’t assume anything. There is no guarantee that these veggies are no-spray, organic, or even local at all. They could easily have been purchased from a conventional farm at a produce auction and stocked in the farmstand. There’s nothing inherently wrong with purchasing products for resale, but customers deserve to know what they’re buying. Is that tomato coming straight from the garden behind the stand, or was it imported from another country? In our area, we see Canadian produce being brought in by the truckload. Technically, this may still be local, as we are less than 20 miles from the international border, but it’s a far cry to pass it off as New York grown.

The same goes for meat. If a farmstand is selling beef, pork, goat, or lamb, customers should be able to tell where it was butchered. Legally, it must bear a USDA inspection stamp in order to be sold. In New York, rabbit and poultry are governed separately, but people should still be able to tell where these products were processed by looking at their packaging. If it isn’t obvious, customers shouldn’t be afraid to ask by whom the animals were butchered. They can also inquire about storage temperatures, added ingredients, and the practices used while the animal was still alive. Asking questions about where food comes from isn't being difficult, it’s being informed. A good farmer should always be able to answer all of these questions with confidence.

Food safety is something we take extremely seriously on our farm. We've shared this story before, but it's worth repeating because it illustrates just how important proper food labeling can be. We have a family member who is severely allergic to duck eggs. They once purchased cinnamon buns from a farmstand in their home state. The buns were made by a home baker who didn’t properly label their ingredients. A simple omission sent our loved one to the hospital with a potentially life threatening reaction. That experience changed the way we look at food safety. When someone is producing food for other people, they aren't just selling something delicious, they're taking responsibility for what happens when someone eats it. That means understanding the rules that apply to their products and following them carefully. In the case of baked goods, that includes listing complete ingredient and allergen information. New York has specific requirements for home bakers, and has established guidelines for what can and can’t be sold. For example, pumpkin bread can’t be sold at a farmstand, as the moisture content is too high and the product may grow moldy if left at ambient temperatures. Customers who are purchasing homemade baked goods can also check New York State’s list of registered home processors to verify that the baker is operating under the state’s Home Processor Exemption. It’s a simple step, but one that can provide some reassurance that the person selling the food has taken the time to understand and follow the applicable food safety requirements.

There's another issue that concerns us as full-time farmers: pricing. We're seeing more and more farmstands and hobby farms selling products at prices that don't necessarily reflect what it actually costs to produce them. Sometimes, the farmer simply hasn't done the math. Other times, the farmer knows exactly what the product costs, but isn't relying on the farm to provide their household income. Take eggs, for example. If it costs a farmer $4 to produce a dozen eggs and they're selling them for $3 because they don't really need the money, they've created a price that a full-time farmer can't reasonably compete with. This may seem harmless; after all, they're just selling a few dozen eggs. But when multiplied across dozens of farmstands and dozens of products, this sort of price dumping can have a real impact on the local agricultural economy.

Food needs to be priced for long term economic sustainability. Hobby farmers who sell their products should know their numbers. Feed costs, fencing, housing, equipment, veterinary expenses, processing, packaging, labor, utilities, insurance, taxes, and all of the other costs that go into producing food need to be considered. Market research should come into play as well. Established farms in the area provide a useful benchmark for comparable products. Hobby farmers don't have to charge exactly what everyone else charges, but they should understand why the market price is what it is.

There's nothing wrong with being a hobby farmer. In fact, we think hobby farms are great. We want more people participating in the food system. We want more people growing vegetables, raising livestock, learning about agriculture, and becoming connected to where their food comes from. But it’s important to acknowledge that hobby farmers aren't always on the same footing as career farmers. A hobby farmer may have another job that provides health insurance, retirement benefits, and a reliable paycheck. The farm may be something they do because they enjoy it. If they make a little money, great. If they break even, that's fine. And if they lose money, they may still consider the operation worthwhile because they're enjoying the experience. That creates a very different economic reality than the one faced by someone whose farm is their livelihood. Farming in modern times isn’t easy. In fact, USDA data reveals that 84% of American farmers relied on off-farm work for more than half of their income in 2022, but there is definitely a distinction between a working farm that supplements its income with off-farm employment and a hobby farm that isn't intended to be economically self-sustaining.

Unfortunately, there’s also a less comfortable reality: some people intentionally operate their farms at a loss. We aren't talking about ordinary business losses that happen because farming is hard (and trust us, it is). We're talking about someone with a substantial outside income who is actively trying to lose money on their farm to reduce their tax liability. They’re trying to dodge the system, and they know that they need to make at least $10,000 in sales per year in order to be considered a legitimate farm, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they need to price their products in order to cover expenses. If that person's outside job disappeared tomorrow, the economics of their farm would have to change dramatically in order to stay in business. Career farmers cannot afford to price their products below cost. Our families depend on our businesses being financially viable, so it hurts to be undercut by people who don’t need the money,

None of this means we want farmstands and hobby farms to disappear. Before we built our store, we had a little roadside farmstand for years. We want local agriculture to grow. We want customers to have more opportunities to buy food directly from the people who produce it. But we also want consumers to understand that a farmstand is not automatically synonymous with a farm. Questions about where food was grown and how it was processed are reasonable asks. We want customers to understand the values behind the businesses they’re supporting, and to make informed decisions about where they spend their money.

Career farmers have it all on the line. As full-time farmers ourselves, we choose to support others in our position because we believe that they’re the ones who need it the most. This is evidenced by the products we’ve chosen to carry at Cooks’ Country Store, all of which are sourced from full-time farmers or artisans (with very few exceptions). By all means, we want people to keep hobby farming. We want them to grow gardens, raise chickens, and sell their extra eggs to their neighbors. We want to see more locally produced food, and we want to see more farmstands that operate transparently and equitably. Above all, we want to establish a level playing field for the people who are trying to make farming their full-time livelihood.