Diversity of short marketing channels with the participation of family farmers: Relevance of traditional modalities such as producer fairs and innovative ones such as Whatsapp groups

Abstract

This study compares traditional marketing modalities like farmers’ markets and innovative markets such as sales via phone app that are utilized by family farmers as short marketing channels, which are modalities that directly connect them to consumers. Through questionnaires and interviews with key informants, we investigated, characterized, and verified the geographic distribution and assessed the economic relevance and level of participation in various short marketing channels by family farmers. We found that diverse short channels exist in the sampled municipalities (7.18 channels per municipality, on average), and over a quarter of family farmers (26.25%) use them to sell their goods. Traditional short marketing channels are more common and more inclusive in terms of the number of farmers, and generate more income than the newer modes. Municipalities with more channels tended to promote a higher level of socio-productive inclusion for family farmers, since short channels were responsible for 25.74% of the productive income of the sampled group of farmers. Despite their diversity and frequent presence, short channels do not yet include the majority of family farmers and do not even represent their main source of income, and as a result should be considered as only one of many strategies to promote rural development.