Episode 10 - Expanding Market Opportunities with MarketMaker

In this episode of the FARM Champion Podcast, host Ahlishia Shipley sits down with agricultural marketing expert Darlene “Dar” Knipe to discuss what market access really means for farmers and ranchers. Dar shares common barriers producers face, the importance of using reliable market information to guide business decisions, and how the MarketMaker platform helps connect producers with buyers, consumers, and new opportunities. Listeners will also learn about emerging trends in agricultural marketing and practical steps to strengthen their market position and profitability.

Transcript

Ahlishia Shipley 0:00

You are listening to the FARM Champion Podcast, where we champion farmer and rancher success. In each episode, we sit down with a FARM Champion, a trusted professional committed to helping producers navigate the business side of agriculture. If you're a farmer, rancher, or agriculture professional working to build a stronger, more resilient operation, you are in the right place. Producing a great quality agricultural product is just one part of the success equation. So farmers and ranchers also need to think about access to markets, reliable market information, strong buyer relationships, and the ability to adapt to changing consumer trends and also economic conditions. So for many producers, especially small beginning, local and value-added producers, understanding where opportunities exist and how to connect them can feel sometimes like a big overwhelming challenge. And so that's why trusted resources, data, and tools can help producers make informed marketing decisions. So joining me today to go deeper into this topic is Darlene Knipe, who is affectionately known as Dar in the ag marketing world. So Dar is a nationally recognized leader in agricultural marketing and food systems development. And she currently serves as the principal in the Global Food and Ag Network, which manages the National Food Market Maker Program. Dar, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. So I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And before we get into the topic of ag marketing, I understand that you've spent much of your career helping producers navigate ag markets and build stronger connections within food systems. I know that our listeners would love to know about your background. And so would I ask, so can you share a little bit about your professional journey and what drew you to this work that's focused on ag marketing, entrepreneurship, and market development?

Darlene Knipe 2:33

Okay, um, well, it's a long journey. I've been doing this for 40 some years. So there's a... that's, that's a lot of milestones and a lot of experiences in that 40 years. I've always been interested in entrepreneurship and market development. I started at Ohio State, which, if you know anything about Columbus, Ohio, it's called Test Market USA, and there's a lot of market research that goes on. And so as a student, we it had a lot of opportunity to understand, you know, just the challenges with new product development, market penetration, mostly from a corporate perspective. But I also took some classes on entrepreneurship and something clicked. I became an entrepreneur groupie, for want of a better word. When I went into graduate school, I um actually took some more courses, did some consulting work, uh, not well, but it it gave me an opportunity to learn from the people that I thought I was helping, which was kind of an interesting situation. And I, you know, after I graduated, I spent a period of time as a corporate financial analyst in the corporate world. Then I circled back to working with small businesses and entrepreneurs, which was really where my passion was. And I did some in the trenches work with the Small Business Development Center network that the SBA, you know, supports. I don't know if anybody on listening is familiar with that program. And then I ended up at University of Illinois in extension, working with small businesses, specifically a lot of main street mom and pop operations. And I've always had some connection to land grant universities. I was in 4-H when I was a kid. I grew up in 4-H actually, when I was working at Ohio State, I worked for the Extension Program. Met my husband in 4-H in high school. So my roots are deep there. And as a result, I've always had an appreciation and a passion for that whole system. So the chance to come back to it and do something like this was really, you know, it was a dream job for me. I really enjoyed it. My husband, who also worked with the University of Illinois for 30-some years, worked specifically with livestock specialists. So even though I was working in the area of small business development, predominantly Main Street, he was working with farmers, livestock producers who were dealing with issues, suppressed commodity markets. And he had this real concern about uh the attrition of the family farm. He saw that, you know, there was a decline in those numbers. They were not large enough to compete on a the larger scale operations. And he grew up on a livestock farm. And he said, what's going to happen is he said there's going to be people out there that are no longer going to know, you know, get the benefit of the quality product that farmers and mid-sized farmers and small farmers could produce. And so he said, what they really need if they're not getting, if they're not getting what they need to be successful in a commodity environment, we could join forces and help them understand where there's market opportunities outside of row crops. So that's why we started this project as part of extension called Market Maker. And that was 20 some years ago. And so we kind of merged not only my interest in marketing and small business development, Rich's passion for working with small and mid-sized farmers and the intersection with emerging technology, which back then, you know, we were talking about the internet and, you know, wow, it's just gonna be, you know, this really, you know, mind-exploding development technology that everybody should be taking advantage of. And, you know, we've just kind of evolved and developed and built this. And, you know, 23 years later, here we are. So that's my story, the short story anyway. But it's very rewarding. It's been a very, and we're still, we're still growing and learning, you know, I've 40 years and I'm still growing and learning.

Ahlishia Shipley 5:59

Dar, thank you so much for sharing that. You know, it seems to be from what you share, it's a fascinating through line in your career that has consistently bridged entrepreneurship and marketing and outreach. You know, you've been able to bring that work over into extension and create this wonderful platform that we're gonna dig into in in just a moment. When we talk about market access and agriculture, what does that really mean for farmers and ranchers? And then kind of like as a follow-up to that, what does a strong or optimal market look like for a producer?

Darlene Knipe 6:35

Very good questions. In answer to your first question, it actually can mean two things. Farmers fall into two categories. They're either price takers or they're price makers. I think more traditional agriculture, they are price takers where they grow to scale. It's it's all a function of production and efficiency because the market determines the price. They don't get to determine the price for their product. But then there's a whole other segment, growing segment of agriculture where they've become price makers. And that's where they're looking at differentiated products. And they get to choose who their markets are and they get to set their own price. But with that comes a whole host of challenges. It's a whole different mindset. So if you're talking about where I come from and market maker, we focus on the price makers. That's where you get into value-added agriculture and a lot of small and mid-sized producers. As far as what makes a strong optimal market, well, I think that in in my view, the best markets are the ones where the good products align with the consumers as efficiently and effectively as possible. You see a lot of markets that really are dominated by, you know, a few companies that have what I consider sometimes an unfair competitive advantage. Um, you know, maybe it's capital intensivity or, you know, access to information that's not easily accessed in the general public. You know, I think if you can lower some of those barriers to entry and allow good ideas to find their way to willing markets, that's the optimal market.

Ahlishia Shipley 8:04

Hmm. I learned something there. So price takers and price makers. I don't think that I had had heard those two terms before. As a follow-up question, I want to ask you what are some signs maybe that a producer may need to rethink or strengthen their marketing strategy?

Darlene Knipe 8:26

Well, I mean, obviously, if if they're not operating profitably or um if they don't see growth, those are obvious signs that they need to reevaluate their marketing strategy. Frankly, in a lot of cases, you know, we're dealing with farmers that have not had any marketing strategy. I think they kind of rely on Kismet, you know, for those market opportunities to emerge. So just the whole thinking of, you know, you have to be deliberate and strategic about accessing those markets. I think that's one of the biggest challenges.

Ahlishia Shipley 8:55

And so that is a great segue because I was just about to ask you about uh some barriers and challenges that producers face in this market arena. And one of the ones that I think is important, probably it seems like the most important, is actually having a marketing strategy. So what are some of the other most common barriers or challenges producers face when trying to market their products successfully?

Darlene Knipe 9:20

Well, I mentioned the fact that, you know, access to market intelligence. I, you know, when I was working in the corporate world, I was I was amazed at how sophisticated those operations were when it came to really understanding their markets and you know what they paid to get data. You know, that's that's a challenge for a small and mid-sized producer or farmer who's not used to operating in that that whole mindset of marketing. The other is supply chain coordination. Agriculture is idiosyncratic. I worked with a lot of small businesses and the challenges that small businesses face, it's kind of universal, whether you're talking about agriculture or, you know, other sectors, but agriculture itself does have some unique challenges. You know, supply chain coordination, trying to navigate and organize a distribution channel, you know, from your farming operation. It's a the whole ag market food system is very disaggregated. And so there's a lot of players out there. And finding the ones to connect with, the right ones to connect with, that's really tough. And the other is that's that's kind of unique to agriculture is proximity to market. And there's a lot of industries where they they're very strategic about locating their operation, you know, somewhere in in proximity to a market. You know, there's businesses that locate on Main Street for a reason, you know, because of traffic and that sort of thing. But this is where you're looking at agriculture where you're you're bound to the land. And sometimes by being tied to a farm in a very rural area, a remote area, you're not in the proximity of those markets. So that creates its own challenges, not only in getting your product there, but also in dealing with a marketplace that you haven't always had a front row seat to. So those are some of the, those are some of the challenges that I would say we we see on a day-to-day basis.

Ahlishia Shipley 11:03

Thank you. I want to, I want to dig a little deeper into the market information. You mentioned that, you know, access to data is a often a barrier for producers and how instrumental it is to work toward market success. Can you talk about why access to quality market data and information is so important and you know what producers can glean from this data to help them make decisions? That's almost a whole course in and of itself.

Darlene Knipe 11:30

So there's two issues here around data. I there's there's no shortage of data. USDA is is a is a Fort Knox of data. There's so much information that can be gathered, you know, census data, you know, but the challenge is that it's not always digestible. Or if you're a busy farmer, to be able to master some of these data sources and and they're everywhere, it can be very time consuming. Like I said, that's the reason why large companies invest a lot of money in developing staff that are experts in these areas. The other thing is that, you know, there's also a cost associated with some of that data too. And some of those access charges can be prohibitive. But, you know, the other issue is that especially now with social media, being able to vet data sources and know good data from bad data, that's very, very challenging. And now that you have AI, I mean, there's so much misinformation out there in terms of markets that, you know, how can someone who wants to focus on producing or growing something, how can they be on top of that game where they know what where the good information is and and you know what can be deceiving or distorting?

Ahlishia Shipley 12:33

Learning what to trust. I think that is a... Oh, that's a good, yes... an area that lots of consumers might be contending with just across just different areas of life. So, how would you advise a producer on what data to actually trust?

Darlene Knipe 12:51

I've mentioned before there's a lot of different places where there's good information. I think what you have to do is find that trusted agent of that information. And I'm saying this probably selfishly because we've tried to step up and play that role in the marketplace. Extension, and you you've been involved with extension over the years, you realize trusted neutral, um, science-based, you know, those are all things that are are sort of requirements. They're they're part of the credo for extension. And we've adopted that with Market Maker as well. We want to be a conduit of trusted information. And and so if we can build the trusted relationship where they realize that we have their interests at heart and we're willing to vet that information, you know, those are the kinds of sources you want to align with. We're not the only ones out there that are really looking out for the greater good and trying to make sure there's good information out there, but it's up to the the farmer to identify who those are, where where those sources are and the ones they feel most comfortable working with.

Ahlishia Shipley 13:44

Thank you for that. Extension has come up a lot as a trusted source for information and being able to help guide producers through a number of different financial decisions and practices. So, with the way the world is working right now and the economic conditions and things like that, what can you tell us about what types of information producers should be paying like the most attention to when evaluating a market opportunity?

Darlene Knipe 14:13

Competition, the competitive environment. A lot of times the market opportunities that get the most attention are also the ones that are the most crowded. Yeah, there's a reason why people gravitate to those market opportunities because they get a lot of exposure. There's a lot of awareness around those emerging opportunities. When I used to teach marketing, we'd say, yeah, figure out what everybody's doing and do something different. And that's really key. You want to identify those unique opportunities because product differentiation, competitive advantage, comparative advantage is probably one of the most important things that you have to land on when you decide to become a price maker as opposed to a price taker.

Ahlishia Shipley 14:50

Figure out what everyone is doing and do something different. I'm going to keep that with me, Gar. You're welcome to use it. Now I really want to talk about Market Maker. So tell us more. For our listeners who may not be as familiar with Market Maker, can you explain what it is and who it serves?

Darlene Knipe 15:10

So it's it's it's really hard to get into a little short sentence, but I'll do my best. Market maker is a it's a connector. The idea is that we're convening the buyers, the sellers, communities, anyone, it's it's in its food and agriculture. So we also include horticulture, that sort of thing. So we we have a pretty broad base. But the idea is that, you know, we're trying to not only provide some of that market intelligence that I talked about can be critical in deciding who to target market, but also on a on a day-to-day basis, help those who are looking for certain products connect with those who are providing it. And, you know, the the wonderful thing about working with Market Maker all these years is, you know, we've discovered there are farmers that are raising wonderful things in obscurity. And, you know, they really should focus as much on producing their products as possible. So allow us to do some of the heavy lifting in terms of not only identifying where those markets might be, but pointing them out or putting them in front of potential markets. And it's not just the complex supply chains, the wholesale markets, the professional buyers, but it could also be the short supply chains to directly to consumer. So we're scale neutral in that regard. But our job is to be sort of that carnival barker that directs the interested parties, the interest potential buyers to those markets.

Ahlishia Shipley 16:24

So you're kind of touching on producers, buyers, and and consumers themselves. So for a producer sitting here thinking, I wonder if Market Maker could be helpful to me, how how do they get involved? Like what do what do they do first? What do those steps look like?

Darlene Knipe 16:42

Well, first of all, it's pretty low risk for them because it doesn't cost anything. You know, we've we've really, when we developed Market Maker way back in 2004, our intention really was to build an infrastructure, an information infrastructure, so that, you know, buyers and sellers and everybody in between, you know, we talk about connecting with markets, connecting with potential buyers, but it even means connecting with the middle of the supply chain, you know, the processors, the wholesalers. So it's it's pretty much allowing everyone to find one another. We wanted to eliminate, we talked about barriers to market. We didn't want any kind of a charge to be a barrier to those individuals finding one another. So it's free. And, you know, thanks to other people that have shared our vision around this platform or platforms that can help players in the supply chain find one another, you know, we've gotten the support from USDA, you know, Farm Credit, Farm Bureau, just a lot of organizations around the country that have all been willing to contribute either financially or in kind to help build this vision of platform, a an internet-based system where markets and buyers can markets and producers can align. So the best way I would say to get started is go for start is to go to foodmarketmaker.com. But I will say that Market Maker is a network of networks. We're not a single platform. We're actually connecting directories and systems all over the country with partners such as Farmer Veteran Coalition or Departments of Ag or Farm Bureau Directories. So we we've found a way to have information or share information through a lot of different uh network organizations. And, you know, the farmer can go in there, the producer can go in there, create a profile that they want, basically a CV in a way or a resume that says, this is what I grow. These are my best practices. Anything that they consider that would be an important product or market differentiator, and put that in a market maker profile, and then that can be dispersed in a lot of different ways through our network. So it's foodmarketmaker.com. Yes, yes. But we support 300 different domains around the country. So there's a lot of ways. There may be organizations where you're creating a profile where you may not realize it's powered by market maker, but they're all interconnected. They're all synchronized. So one profile can be directed to many different ways to be discovered.

Ahlishia Shipley 19:03

It seems like a lot of different parts of the agricultural ecosystem are, you know, kind of connected in this platform that you've built in a really beautiful, effective way. Thank you for sharing more about the platform with us. So one of the things that we try to highlight on the show is how trusted, reliable resources like Market Maker can really make positive impact for producers. So I just wanted you to share more, like at a high level, what impact have you seen Market Maker have within agricultural communities and the food system?

Darlene Knipe 19:37

Well, we have we actually have several different stakeholder groups, but let's start first with the farmers, since I know that's that's an important audience for this podcast. I can tell you examples of farmers that have created a unique product, but they may not be real market savvy. I'm thinking specifically of an example of an immigrant farmer population where they made amazing product, they produced amazing produce. But there were even things like language and cultural barriers. They grew a unique product. It was ginger. And I think, you know, I never had any idea there were so many different types of cultivars of ginger. And but there was one that they they felt that they did uniquely well. And, you know, the reality is in a very diverse marketplace like the United States, there are people that had a real appreciation for that. So they were able to, we have what we call a buy-sell marketplace where not only are we, you can create a profile, but there's something like a Facebook marketplace where you can actually post product availability. And they were able to establish markets using that platform. We also have within this ecosystem, I'm going to use that term information ecosystem because that's a good way to describe market maker. We also have food assistance programs and food banks and food pantries that are part of the community. And we had a farmer that had surplus ground beef, and we were able to, through the connecting process, be able to match them with schools and food banks that were interested in that product. So, you know, those are just two examples of ways that market maker can make a difference. But on another level, we bring in a lot of USDA data. If you're really wanting to do like business planning or developing a market strategy or even a financial plan where banks want to know that you understand your markets, we also bring in, you know, government data. And between the data that we have from all of the different farmers who are providing detail about what they grow and how they grow it and this secondary data, it's also a useful resource for researchers and policymakers and strategic branders. There's a lot of different ways that market makers have been able to make an impact, and we have a lot of traffic.

Ahlishia Shipley 21:35

I am really impressed by the scale. So, from your perspective, what are some of the most promising trends or emergent opportunities that you're seeing in the agricultural marketing space that producers should be paying attention to?

Darlene Knipe 21:50

Well, what are we? A country of about 340 million people, and it's a very diverse population. And so the more diverse we become, the more opportunities. There is because each one of those little slivers of consumer markets is an opportunity waiting to be discovered. When market makers started, we were focusing on a handful of what I call market differentiators that we saw were driving the environment. Organic was starting to take hold. Local food movement was going from being a fad to a trend. And those are just two, but but what we've seen over 24 years is every year there's some new emerging market. And I call them values-based markets, where I think that there was a time when consumers pretty much took whatever was available. What did uh Henry Ford say that you can have any color car you want as long as it's black? You know, I think that we are a lot more, I guess, a militant marketplace where we want what we want when we want it. And one size does not fit all. So a savvy farmer slash entrepreneur recognizes that and embraces it. And there are plenty of signals out there. There are plenty of market signals out there that if you've got your, if you're tuned in, you see where those emerging opportunities are. Technology is changing the landscape significantly. AI is considered a threat, but it's an opportunity as well. You know, how can you use artificial intelligence to shortcut or make your market processes more efficient? It can often be a very disturbing environment where you see a lot of market disruptions. We've been through COVID. You know, we've seen some really difficult market times where there was, you know, uh droughts and things like that. But at the end of the day, what emerges is a better, more resilient system.

Ahlishia Shipley 23:28

Absolutely. For producers who are listening right now, who may feel unsure about where to begin in terms of establishing or even strengthening their marketing approach, you know, maybe looking to expand market access. I'd love for you to offer them something practical and encouraging. So, what are one or two practical steps that a producer can take right now to better position themselves for a stronger market opportunity?

Darlene Knipe 23:58

Well, besides setting up your profile on market maker, I would say, you know, part of it is actually knowing your product well enough to know where it might excel in the marketplace. But, you know, another what I think a useful tip would be what I call the second mover advantage. I mentioned before that, you know, you shouldn't be looking at what everyone else is doing and then do the same thing. But there is something to be said for being the second person to market because the pioneers, one, it takes a lot of resources to create a market. And there's always inevitably a lot of mistakes. So it's it's the ones that follow the early movers that often have the best market opportunities. They can go in there and they can actually perfect or learn from the mistakes of the people that the pioneers. So, you know, keeping your ear to the ground well enough to see those emerging opportunities and yet knowing when the right time to step in. And it's an art more than than a science, that can be a really important move. So, you know, constantly reading, I think, you know, I had I used to teach entrepreneurship. We had this thing called hobbies and headlines where every day we'd scan the papers and identify it didn't matter what it was. It could be political events, it could be technological events. There was, there's so many things on the front page. Well, we used to have the old-fashioned newspaper, but you know, there's so many things online for online news that every one of those events is its own opportunity. And to be mindful of those and always be thinking, okay, here's what I do, here's my strengths, these are my skill sets. How can what I'm doing now capitalize on what I'm seeing as something that's maybe going from a fad to a trend? That is a never-ending process. And that's something that I've always seen in the entrepreneurs I've worked with over the years. They're constantly scanning their environment. They're always assessing, they're never satisfied to rest on their markets. They're always looking out for where that next emerging opportunity is, or how, you know, to be agile enough to adapt as the marketplace changes. And there is one other thing I want to share that I think is good advice because what I mentioned before, the proximity to markets, and that sometimes your world is far and away from the markets that may be the best opportunity for you. It's hard sometimes for some small businesses to realize that those markets don't always think and look like them. And so the tendency to think that everybody's going to behave the way you would in a market environment can be very limiting. So learning as much as you can about what drives the behavior of the people you're trying to sell to is really important. A classic example when we first got started was that there were farmers that were growing product that really urban markets were really critical to them and ethnic markets, but it wasn't necessarily the ethnicity that they had. So to understand what those types of consumers wanted to see, you know, you can sometimes fall back on, well, this is what I would do, or this is what I think. You have to kind of throw that whole mindset out. So really understanding, and there's plenty of science behind this, understanding those target markets well enough to know how to construct a marketing strategy. That's really important too.

Ahlishia Shipley 26:51

Thank you. That seems to be like a significant mindset shift. So, Dar, before we close, we always like to end with what we call a resilience reflection. And so, as we've talked about throughout this episode, your work has really focused on helping producers build stronger businesses, but also helping buyers and communities and connecting to opportunities and a little bit of like navigating agricultural risk through data and good information that you provide kind of connections to. So, what keeps you committed to this work and what gives you hope about the future of market access and agricultural marketing? So there's a lot to be hopeful for, actually.

Darlene Knipe 27:38

I, I know that we're sort of consumed with things that are going on right now that we just really have reasons to be concerned how is this going to impact agriculture. But the good news is ag markets are not going to go away. This people will always eat and you know there will always be a need for agriculture. So resilience is built into the sector, right? I mean, you know, we've seen markets that no longer exist anymore. It's, you know, changes, change has taken place. But, you know, agriculture is enduring. So that's one very positive thing. And the other is, and I I probably get this sense of optimism from the very entrepreneurs that I've worked with, they're innovative, they can see opportunities where no one else can see them. And frankly, they look at, and I this came from them, you know, an entrepreneur himself that said, you know, when he saw a problem, it was an opportunity. They're they're problem solvers, they're creative problem solvers. So, you know, if if we're willing to invest and give a few resources to those innovative thinkers, those ag entrepreneurs, they'll figure it out. We don't have to chart the path for them. We just need to give them a few tools and resources to help them succeed. That's really sort of the American story, too, you know, the entrepreneur, the small business. So it is in agriculture as well.

Ahlishia Shipley 28:48

I absolutely adore that resilience reflection. I love that the ag is enduring. And what an amazing forum champion you are. It has been wonderful to talk with you today and just kind of hear your journey and how it's culminated into this amazing, very useful, valuable platform that's being used in states across the country. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Darlene Knipe 29:14

Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I've enjoyed it.

Ahlishia Shipley 29:17

Absolutely. For our listeners, if you'd like to learn more about Market Maker and explore agricultural marketing resources and opportunities, you can visit foodmarketmaker.com and connect with tools designed to help producers, buyers, and consumers strengthen local and regional food systems. Additionally, I have to remind you to explore tools and resources that support forum business success, please visit agftap.org and learn how to connect with a FARM Champion in your area. And remember to like and subscribe to the FARM Champion Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and see you next time.