And when these same farmers make a delivery to Argus Farm Stop, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the staff treat them like minor celebrities: free coffee, shout-outs from the owners, the works. “They are like rock stars,” says Bill Brinkerhoff, Argus’ co-owner, a tall, friendly businessman with a passion for local food. “It’s like, ‘Farmer John is in the house!’”

Argus represents an emerging business model, the farm stop, which connects consumers and farmers in a local food web. A farm stop sells food on consignment from nearby small and medium farms, landing it somewhere between a grocery store, a farmers’ market, and a food hub. Here, farmers deliver freshly harvested produce to a brick-and-mortar retail shop with a full staff. The farmers set their own prices and keep the bulk of the revenue.

Farm stops operate quite differently from typical mainstream grocery stores like Kroger or Albertson’s, which rely on industrialized food systems and complex supply chains. They are also distinct from a farmers’ market, which requires farmers to either be there for sales or hire someone to sell for them. With farm stops, retail consumers have better access to local food, and farmers can spend more time farming.

It’s a small but expanding niche. At least six farm stops operate in the Midwest, and many of them opened over the past decade, including Bloomington Farm Stop Collective, in Indiana, and the Lakeshore Depot, in Marquette, Michigan.

At Argus, the hope is to make life easier for farmers. Too many small farmers quit, Brinkerhoff says, because “there is not enough money and it’s too hard. We are trying to change that narrative: to make it sustainable, economically, to be a small farmer.”

A Niche for Smaller Farms

As a result, smaller farms are disappearing. From 2012 to 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. decreased by almost 10 percent, according to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, while the average farm size increased 6.7 percent, from 434 acres to 463 acres. That has created a food system that may be more efficient, but is also less resilient. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the complex supply chains of large-scale systems proved vulnerable to shock, while smaller-scale operations were able to adapt and pivot. Such adaptability will prove essential as climate change continues.

In the meantime, the current industrial system is hard on smaller farm operators, who are forced “to be price takers instead of price makers,” says Kim Bayer, the owner of Slow Farm, which sells organic produce at Argus.

Farm stops can change the equation. Slow Farm, based on the north side of Ann Arbor, typically makes two deliveries a week to Argus from May to October: a small run on Wednesday, directly to the market, and a larger one on Sunday, for Argus’ community-supported agriculture program (CSA), with customers picking up their weekly boxes at the store. And, like all of Argus’ farm suppliers, Slow Farm earns 70 percent of the retail price for their food, at prices Bayer herself sets. That’s a significant difference compared to the average of 15 percent of retail going to growers who sell to supermarkets.

The model relies on a “mutual trust relationship” between the food stop and the farmers, Brinkerhoff says. “We have to trust that they are going to supply us, and they have to trust that we are going to take good care of their products.”  

Better Food, Better Access

In Michigan, corn and soy farming dominate the agricultural economy, and smaller vegetable farms are less common, says Jazmin Bolan-Williamson, the farm business coordinator at the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems. So large grocery chains in the region often fill their shelves with heavily processed foods that are transported from thousands of miles away.

Farms supplying Argus, by contrast, produce a wide range of crops, including heirloom varieties. All of it travels only a few miles to arrive on the shelf. The food is not only fresher, but its carbon footprint is lighter, another boon.

The benefits of farm stops extend to larger groups, too. Argus hopes to become as a single point of contact for school kitchens in the community, making it easier for them to source locally grown food. This creates a network of support for a resilient local food system. And not just in farm country. The model can also help create those networks in cities, too.

In Rock Hill, South Carolina, for example, FARMacy Community Farmstop provides quality food to the city’s lower-income residents. A farm stop’s flexibility, size, and community-centered focus are uniquely suited to help, FARMacy’s founder, Jonathan Nazeer, says.

FARMacy employs a pay-what-you-will system, where lower-income customers pay what they can and others pay above sticker price to compensate. The farm stop has received funding from the South Carolina Dept of Local Food Purchasing Assistant for produce at the market and in weekly boxes.

FARMacy also cultivates learning and gathering around food, Nazeer says. In the seating area outside the store, FARMacy hosts concerts, workshops, and cooking classes. Here, people connect more deeply with what they’re eating, while they create community. When people value and understand their food, he says, “we empower them to take charge of their health and feel good about how they are participating in this system.”

Paving a Path for Farm Stops

Farmers’ markets typically work under cottage food laws, which allow farmers to sell unregulated food as long as they are present for the sale. Farm stops, however, operate outside of this regulatory system, which can create some unusual challenges—and ad hoc solutions.

For example, in 2016, after receiving a complaint, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) cited Argus for selling eggs from small farms that hadn’t processed their eggs in a licensed facility. Under Michigan law, unlicensed egg producers can only sell their eggs directly to consumers. An inspector visited the farm stop and seized 90 dozen eggs, according to the MDARD.

Over the following weeks, Argus worked with the department, local farms and experts, and elected state officials to find a way for the unlicensed farms to sell directly to customers. Now, Argus merely holds the eggs (in a distinct refrigerator) but takes no money; customers pick up the eggs they’ve purchased from farmers.

“MDARD has been working in collaboration and partnership with Argus Farm Stop for many years,” says Jennifer Holton, a spokesperson for the department. “It is a success story in Michigan from a farmer perspective, in that they provide a way for farmers to get their products to an enthusiastic, supportive customer base in an economically viable way that respects the limited time farmers have for selling their products away from the farm.”

Other challenges are financial and practical.

Establishing and maintaining a farm stop takes a lot of time and money, says Michigan State University’s Bolan-Williamson. It can be tricky to find the right building for a market, and it can cost millions to build a grocery-ready facility from the ground up, she says.

Getting a bank loan could prove difficult, too. It’s likely a bank would want to see local interest in a farm stop before lending funds, Bolan-Williamson says. She suggests that farm stops hold town meetings, gather signatures or even seek donations as proof of that interest.

Despite these challenges, Brinkerhoff says, if you find the right niche, a farm stop can be entirely supported by consumer demand. He and his partners founded Argus roughly 10 years ago with $180,000. Argus now operates two markets and two cafés, employs 65 people, and partners with roughly 200 local farmers, food producers, and artisans. In 2023, the store made $6.5 million in sales.

Argus is now taking a leading role in expanding the movement. Its success, and its galvanizing effect on local farms, provide a beacon: In the past decade, the acres of farmland in Washtenaw County—where Argus is located — actually grew, according to the USDA census of agriculture.

In March, Argus held the first-annual National Farm Stop Conference in Ann Arbor. The conference hosted roughly 120 participants from across the country, including existing farm stops, representatives from communities looking to adopt the model, and policymakers hoping to understand more about it.

They’re learning from each other. Nazeer, who attended the conference on behalf of FARMacy, says different cities can adapt the model to their needs, and each has unique strategies to share. In fact, after the conference, Argus visited FARMacy to learn more about its approach.

Senior representatives from the USDA were also at the conference; they connected with Argus and expressed interest in using the model to grow local food systems.

Rebecca Gray, director of The Wild Ramp farmers’ market in Huntington, West Virginia, felt energized by the event. She says she recognized the chance to learn from successful, long-running farm stops, and appreciated how a span of a few days helped bridge the gap between politicians and small farmers. “It was a really great opportunity for these two groups of people to connect and learn about each other’s operations,” she says, and “for policymakers to see what their policy is actually doing.”

Besides hosting the farm stop conference, Argus also offers monthly hour-long webinars and sells three-day online courses for anyone interested in starting their own farm stop, plus private consulting.

Brinkerhoff is not looking to open more farm stops, but he remains committed to helping other communities do so. Farm stops are “efficient, effective, enjoyable, and affordable,” he says. “Any town that has a farmers’ market can do one.”

This article was updated to correct one of the sources of FARMacy’s funding.