Farmers — some burnt by bad experiences with venture-capital-owned sales platforms — have been seeking better software to manage sales and distribution of their products. Enter Farm Generations Cooperative and GrownBy, the first farmer-owned and designed online marketplace. Built to address the needs of both consumers and producers, GrownBy democratically places decision-making power and financial rewards in the hands of its most important users: farmers. 

GrownBy, Farm Generation Cooperative’s first service, was incubated for the first year at the National Young Farmers Coalition under Lindsey Lusher Shute in 2019. In 2020, COVID and market closures forced more farmers toward online sales. A small group of early adopters used, tested, and improved the budding version of this software. Today, about 300 farms from specialty backyard growers to significantly scaled CSA farms with 1,000 plus customers are using the platform to manage sales, distributions and customer relations. 

A couple of the farms using GrownBy include Hearty Roots Community Farm (pictured).

From 1810 through today, United States farmers have controlled and strengthened their economic opportunities via formalized cooperatives, both for buying materials and marketing goods. Black farmers, who have long practiced cooperative economic principles in the face of systemic racism and oppression, formalized their mutual aid networks into cooperative structures and used co-ops to run grocery stores, buy farmland, and control their own marketing and inputs. 

Some farms using GrownBy include River Queen Greens (pictured).

Organizations like the Grange and the National Farmers Union grew in popularity across the United States in the later part of the 1800s. Grain elevators, processing equipment, and dairy cooperatives are key ag areas where farmer-owned cooperatives have facilitated getting raw products to market, although mergers in large-scale dairy co-ops have raised concerns in recent years. 

The number of agricultural cooperatives has been in decline since the 1970s but conversely, interest in co-ops has risen in recent years. Notably, GrownBy is the first instance of a platform co-op — a software platform that is owned by and operated for the benefit of its core users, rather than a tech company and its investors — in agriculture. The current context of agricultural co-ops and tech startups sets the perfect stage for a farmer-owned online marketplace like GrownBy.

While Farm Generations is farmer-owned, GrownBy is built to have useful functions for both farmers and shoppers. Many shoppers won’t buy local without the ease of e-commerce features they’d find on larger online retailers and the convenience of knowing what is available before venturing out to market. On GrownBy, customers login via the app to see their sales history, shop from multiple farms, and even make changes to their CSA pickups, saving both themselves and their farmer time and energy that could be focused in the field. They can pay with a saved credit card, using automated and prorated installment payments, or with off-platform methods like cash, check, Venmo or EBT. Plus, customers can get emails or push notifications reminding them of pickups and payments.

An example of what the GrownBy interface looks like on a computer or a phone screen. All images courtesy of the author.

Knowing that farmers want to spend less time juggling admin tasks, but still increase sales, Farm Generations has worked to create a full slate of options for a diversity of farm sales models. GrownBy offers strong and flexible tools for direct market farmers offering standard products, custom boxes, and subscriptions, including add-on only shares. Sending invoices, printing sign-in sheets, and charging customers is available with the click of a button. 

Farmers can manage complex CSA systems, with multiple distribution locations, vacation weeks, rescheduling, different share types, and multiple share prices. The price for these tools is clear: a simple 2% fee on all credit card sales goes to the Co-op, which also counts towards a Member-Owner farm’s patronage in the Co-op should the farm choose to join. This fee, along with the 2.9% fee charged by Stripe (the online payment processor), bring the total cost to farmers using the platform to 4.9%. Presently, all offline sales are free. Each of these tools, and the platform as a whole, have been built with the guidance and leadership of farmers who use the platform.  

New GrownBy features are being introduced and refined on an ongoing basis. Farm Generations sees a need for facilitating delivery and shipping distribution channels, as well as a parallel wholesale sales channel. Built to drive new consumers to farms, Farm Generations is always adapting GrownBy’s user interfaces to make it the best-looking and most user-friendly experience among farm sales apps.

All of GrownBy’s farmer users are encouraged, but not required, to join Farm Generations Cooperative after making their first sale. Being an owner gives farmers voting rights on major decisions and election of the co-op’s board of directors, the option to run for the board themselves, and the opportunity to build equity in and share profits from the co-op. If you’re curious to learn more about Farm Generations and GrownBy, check us out at grownby.app, wherever you get your apps, or sign up for a meeting or workshop — including some just for farm technical service providers — at https://www.farmgenerations.coop/farmers.

Cara Fraver has worked in farming and farm support for 18 years, variously as a co-owner of a diversified vegetable farm in New York, Business Services Director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and as a farm-hand on some stellar teams. She currently works as an educator with the National Good Agricultural Practices Program and in customer support for Farm Generations Cooperative.