By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan MarketMaker works to make the connection between farmers and customers through an innovative online listing service.
The program, developed by the University of Illinois, is an easy-to-navigate website aimed at connecting agricultural producers with consumers and vice versa.
Brought to Michigan by Michigan State University’s (MSU) Product Center, Michigan is the eighth state nationwide to adopt the website.
Tom Kalchik, associate director of MSU’s Product Center, said the website has a distinct advantage over similar websites.
“What we like about this program is that it also includes a whole bunch of census data, so producers can identify a market for themselves. For example, if you’re interested in selling directly to a restaurant in neighborhoods where people make more than $100,000 a year, you can go to that market, identify which ones best suit you, look at each one and contact them for sales,” Kalchick said.
“If a producer in southwestern Michigan is interested in the Chicago market, he can simply go to the Illinois MarketMaker website and take it from there,” he added.
Hundreds of Michigan farms already are registered on the MarketMaker website at www.mimarketmaker.msu.edu
Brigette Leach, of Avalon Farms Homegrown near Climax, Mich., has experience using online listing services. She recently registered the farm’s products on the MarketMaker website.
“It’s new … we’ve been registered for a month or so,” she said. “I don’t know if I expect a whole lot right away.”
But, she has had favorable experiences with other online listing services and is hopeful that MarketMaker will help the farm position itself in a different niche.
“We have a lot of traffic from a website called Local Harvest,” Leach said. “It’s a free listing for anyone who wants to sell locally. My hope is that MarketMaker works similarly for us, only with a different audience.”
Avalon Farms Homegrown produces about 1,100 acres of field crops as well as hydroponic vegetables and herbs. Its hydroponically grown tomatoes, salad greens and herbs are marketed to restaurants and caterers, as well as local farmers markets in the Battle Creek, Bellevue and Kalamazoo areas. The farm also offers a delivery subscription service to provide fresh Michigan grown fruits and vegetables delivered directly to homes and offices.
Leach said she is excited about the opportunities MarketMaker offers.
“I think it can work for individual consumers as well as producers,” she said. “It’s a neat tool. I’m glad the (MSU) Product Center has pursued it and made it available. It’s a tool that any size operation could use.”
Ken Nye, a horticultural specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau’s (MFB) Commodity and Marketing Department, agreed.
“This is a real attractive network for finding buyers for all sorts of goods and services that farmers can provide,” Nye said.
“MSU’s Product Center should be commended for bringing it here, because it looks like a great system for both buyers and sellers,” said Nye, adding that a system of this kind meets member-developed Farm Bureau policy supporting value-added activities in Michigan and the Product Center.
“This website is good not only for people selling fruits and vegetables, but also for livestock producers and people who want to promote or find places with agri-tourism. We just hope both sides will use it,” Nye said.
According to Kalchik, MSU will soon announce producer meetings to help farmers register for the service, although the system is simple enough for even novice web users to operate.
“We’d like to get 10 percent of Michigan producers, or about 5,000 farmers, using this,” he said. “Then we’ll focus on the downstream industries, the restaurants and retailers, to make them aware of it. The third focus will be on consumers, so they can be made aware of how to find what they want, and where.”
Kalchik said Clemson University intends to apply for a national science grant to track the economic impact of the website.
“The one thing I struggle with is that it’s hard to track what kind of commerce it creates,” said Kalchik. “We don’t have good figures now, but I know from conversations with producers that they like it.”