摘要：In recent years, traditional commodity marketing channels have not provided sufficient returns for many small and medium sized farmers to maintain a viable livelihood through only farm activities (Hoppe et al.). While direct marketing allows farmers to retain a much higher share of consumer food expenditures, the elements needed to make this production-marketing strategy a success are not well understood. In part, this is because of their increased complexity as compared to commodity production-marketing systems. Albert Einstein's famous quote that "Everything that can be counted doesn't necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted," may seem all too appropriate when looking at what it takes to thrive at direct farm marketing and agri-tourism. Traditionally, producers have set goals for high yields and low costs of production in order to be a "low cost" commodity producer. This paper presents an alternative route. From a set of 17 case studies, it distills and deciphers the more subtle key elements that have allowed some small and medium sized farmers to achieve success through direct marketing.
