The Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS) mission is to create domestic and international marketing opportunities for U.S. producers of food, fiber, and specialty crops. To accomplish this mission, AMS supports farmers markets in four ways.
- Grants: The Farmers Market Promotion Program funds projects which focus on direct-to-consumer marketing of local and regional food. Read more about AMS investments through our Seeds of Success series that highlights past grant recipients.
- Data: The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), in collaboration with AMS, conducted the 2019 National Farmers Market Managers Survey which helps the farmers market sector and policy makers better understand direct marketing opportunities, activities and challenges from a farmers market manager’s perspective.
- Technical Assistance: Through a cooperative agreement, AMS partnered with three universities and 17 organizations to support a project called, Local Food Systems Response to COVID-19. We worked closed with the Farmers Market Coalition to publish an innovation brief highlighting Alternative Farmers Markets Models that farmers markets adapted during the pandemic. In addition, we collaborated with three markets to explore the importance of budgeting for farmers markets in a case study and video interviews.
- Promotion: AMS hosts a free Farmers Market Directory. From customers looking to buy fresh local foods for their families to market managers doing research, the Local Food Directories can quickly identify nearby suppliers of local food.
