At Argus Farm Stop, the shelves are packed with locally grown vegetables and fruit, herbs, beef, chicken, fish and more. Turnips from one local farm jostle next to Jerusalem artichokes from another, eggs from yet another. Above many of the market stalls, smiling pictures of farmers hang next to their produce.
And when these farmers drop off a delivery at Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the staff treats them like little celebrities: free coffee, greetings from the owners, the whole package. “They’re like rock stars,” says Argus co-owner Bill Brinkerhoff, a tall, friendly businessman with a passion for local food. “It’s like having Farmer John in the house!”
Argus represents an emerging business model, the Farm Stop, that connects consumers and farmers in a local food network. A Farm Stop sells food on consignment from small and medium-sized local farms, landing somewhere between a grocery store, a farmers market and a food center. Here, farmers deliver freshly harvested produce to a fully staffed brick-and-mortar retail store. Farmers set their own prices and keep most of the proceeds.
Bill Brinkerhoff, co-owner of Argus Farm Stop. (Photo: Paige Hodder)
Farm Stops operate very differently than typical grocery stores like Kroger or Albertson’s, which rely on industrialized food systems and complex supply chains. They are also different from a farmers market, where farmers must either be on-site to sell or hire someone to sell for them. At Farm Stops, retail customers have greater access to local food and farmers can spend more time farming.
It’s a small but growing niche. There are at least six farm stops in the Midwest, and many of them have opened in the last decade, including the Bloomington Farm Stop Collective in Indiana and the Lakeshore Depot in Marquette, Michigan.
Argus hopes to make life easier for farmers. Too many small farmers give up, says Brinkerhoff, because “there is not enough money and it is too hard. We are trying to change that: We want to make it economically viable to be a small farmer.”
A niche for smaller farms
Smaller farms in the U.S. are groaning under the weight of financial, legal and logistical challenges. A farm might try to supply a grocery store, but the big chains don’t pay enough to cover the higher costs of homegrown produce. Even if a store did pay adequately, a small farm might struggle to meet licensing and regulatory requirements designed for industrial farming.
“We have to trust that they will supply us, and they have to trust that we will take good care of their products.”
As a result, smaller farms are disappearing. According to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by nearly 10 percent between 2012 and 2022, while the average farm size increased by 6.7 percent, from 434 acres to 463 acres. This has created a food system that is more efficient but also less resilient. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the complex supply chains of large systems proved vulnerable to shocks, while smaller farms were able to adapt and pivot. This adaptability will prove essential as climate change advances.
Meanwhile, the current industrial system is putting a heavy burden on smaller farms, which are forced to be “price takers instead of price makers,” says Kim Bayer, owner of Slow Farm, which sells organic produce at Argus.
Stops at the farms can change the equation. Slow Farm, based north of Ann Arbor, typically delivers to Argus twice a week from May through October: a small delivery on Wednesdays directly to the market and a larger one on Sundays for Argus’ community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, where customers pick up their weekly boxes at the store. And like all of Argus’ farm suppliers, Slow Farm earns 70 percent of the retail price for its food, which Bayer sets itself. That’s a significant difference compared to the average 15 percent of retail revenue that goes to growers who sell to supermarkets.
Kim Bayer, owner of Slow Farm, with farm managers Zach Goodman and Magda Nawrocka-Weekes. (Photo: Paige Hodder)
The model is based on a “mutual relationship of trust” between the food station and the farmers, says Brinkerhoff. “We have to trust that they will supply us, and they have to trust that we will take good care of their products.”
Better food, better access
At the farm shops, customers can enjoy ultra-fresh goods that are otherwise difficult to obtain.
In Michigan, corn and soybean farming dominates, and smaller vegetable farms are rarer, says Jazmin Bolan-Williamson, the agricultural economics coordinator at Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems. As a result, large grocery chains in the region often fill their shelves with highly processed foods that are transported thousands of miles.
The farms that supply Argus, on the other hand, produce a wide range of crops, including heirloom varieties. And all of it travels just a few kilometers before it ends up on the shelf. Not only is the food fresher, it also has a smaller carbon footprint, another advantage.
The benefits of farm stops extend to larger groups as well. Argus hopes to act as a central hub for school kitchens in the community, making it easier for them to source locally grown food. This creates a support network for a resilient local food system. And not just in rural areas. The model can help build such networks in cities as well.
In Rock Hill, South Carolina, for example, the FARMacy Community Farmstop provides high-quality food to the city’s lower-income residents. The flexibility, size and community-oriented focus of a farmstop are uniquely suited to help, says FARMacy founder Jonathan Nazeer.
