Through speaking with all of our participants (producers, consumers, and retailers) it became clear that the challenges producers faced often went unrealized by others. Many of the producers we spoke with felt unrecognized, receiving little support or appreciation for what they do. P9 felt that “local farmers are mostly invisible.”

From the producer’s point of view, this feeling often stemmed from people’s lack of understanding of the type of work involved with farming and the many factors that were beyond a producer’s control when growing food. As P13 explained, “The more informed they are about farming and the type of work it is and understand that crops fail...and not be mad to go a month without carrots…just to have that conversation with them is nice.”

Other producers like P14 and A4 emphasized the importance of having people physically see and experience growing food.

P14 stressed:

“It’s really important to have people see where their food is being grown...Get people outside more and really being aware of now you know why the tomatoes aren’t ready in early June, they’re only knee-high...you’re not going to get the same response...'you don’t have corn yet, you don’t have tomatoes'...you can point to them and say they aren’t ready.”

According to A4, “They don’t understand how much work went into this…It’s why I think it is important for people to experience growing their own food. I think that everyone should work on a farm at some point in order to see where food comes from, how things are grown." Both of these producers touched on the growing separation between themselves and consumers, compounded by the introduction of industrialized agriculture and supermarket chains. Consumers often think of food as coming from a store rather than from beneath the ground or off of a tree, grown and nurtured by a producer.

P12 really emphasized this separation, saying:

“It’s about a paradigm shift…the consumerism that has developed over the past 50 years that is so divorced from reality...Not having ever had to go cut a tree or turning on your heater never having to chop firewood and heat a house with a wood stove. Or going to McDonald’s and never having made a hamburger and cooked it on a grill. There’s all these fundamental aspects of being a human being that we have divorced ourselves from.”

This “divorce,” as P12 calls it, clearly troubled the producers we spoke with and contributed to their feelings of invisibility. When they spoke of their ‘ideal customer’ they often mentioned things like “the kind of customer who is grateful” (P9) and “one who understands what you’re doing” (P3). It was through these descriptions that our producers’ want to be recognized, supported, and understood really surfaced. P13 shared these feelings, explaining how his ‘ideal customer’ was one who was “genuinely happy to see you and understands what you’re doing for them…the one thing that everyone has to have is food. You want people to be appreciative of what you’re doing.” A4 also mentioned how something as small as feedback from customers made a difference for her, when she recounted how “last market people really thanked us and that felt really good."