Those who visited one of the Monroe County U-Pick farms this summer might have noticed a staff member from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County doing a customer satisfaction survey. The survey was designed to find out about customers’ time on the farm while picking fruit.
This project is a collaboration between CCE-Monroe and SUNY Brockport Department of Recreation and Leisure. It aims to support local U-Pick farms by investigating the factors that motivate people to visit them and influence their satisfaction. Factors such as group size, duration of their visit, and the amount of money they spend are important indicators that help farmers make business decisions. This study aims to create a set of best practices and provide recommendations for U-Pick operators looking to better serve their customers.
The survey questionnaire was developed by Dr. Nick Pitas and Dr. Ya-Ling Chen at SUNY Brockport. The CCE-Monroe Agriculture Program educator, Jarmila Haseler, organized the customer surveys at four U-Pick farms that offer blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and peaches. Over 200 responses were collected thanks to a team effort that also included CCE-Monroe interns and volunteers. This also offered the opportunity to interact directly with farmers and their customers.
The project will conclude with farmer interviews that will focus on the barriers that farmers face in their efforts to satisfy their customer needs while being busy running a working farm. Preliminary findings have shown some challenges common to all the farms are limited experience of using social media, lack of opportunity to network with other farmers, and labor shortages.
The outcomes of this work will be documented in a final report. These will be used to guide the development of new resources such as educational workshops for the U-Pick operators. The report will contain no farm-specific information and will be available to the farming community early in 2021 from both CCE-Monroe and the Department of Recreation and Leisure at SUNY Brockport.
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