Market planning for specialty crops: An applied economic approach

Producing and marketing specialty horticultural crops requires the development of a marketing plan. Specialty crops are grown and marketed to fill a "niche," thereby meeting a special need or service. Market planning is the first step in deciding the feasibility of producing and marketing specialty crops. When completing a marketing plan, a number of factors must be considered. They include options available for selling products, market resources, the target market, marketing trends, and price objectives necessary to achieve profits. The production and/or marketing of a specialty crop should not be entered into without proper market planning. The process outlined in this paper was developed from work conducted with farm retail marketing. Direct-to-Consumer Farm Retail Marketing is a popular marketing alternative for selling produce and specialty crop items. The future of this marketing alternative is promising, particularly in farming and geographic areas that are rapidly becoming urbanized. Competition in any form of retail marketing is keen. Success depends on offering the highest quality products and a shopping environment that has customer appeal.