Growing for Market is the only magazine for market farmers featuring articles by growers and other experts in the business of local food and flowers. It is published 10 times per year from a farm in Maine, and GFM’s contributing writers come from farms throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Growing for Market was started in 1992, long before most people had access to the internet, and its mission was to share knowledge among market farmers dispersed across North America. GFM disseminated what were then new ideas such as Community Supported Agriculture, helped growers find suppliers, and, most important, created a nationwide community of like-minded people. As technology changed publishing over the years and many magazines went out of business, GFM continued to thrive because of the expertise of its writers.
While today everyone can turn to the internet for fast information on any topic, GFM is still a primary resource for bringing new ideas to farmers’ attention and providing curated, credible information.
"GFM provides a wonderful forum for the exchange of practical information between growers that is the key to improving our skills and surviving economically," says Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower.
Growing for Market has a long tradition of publishing the most important voices in small-scale farming, many of whom got their start in GFM.
Among the many innovative market farmers who have been published here: Erin Benzakein (Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden); Lynn Byczynski (The Flower Farmer and Market Farming Success); Eliot Coleman (The New Organic Grower and Winter Harvest Handbook); Pam Dawling (Sustainable Market Farming and The Year-Round Hoophouse); Jean-Martin Fortier (The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming); Ben Hartman (The Lean Farm and The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables); Andrew Mefferd (The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook and The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution); Josh Volk (Compact Farms); Richard Wiswall (The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook); and Ellen Polishuk (Start Your Farm) and Shawn Jadrnicek (The Bio-Integrated Farm).
Growing for Market is always looking for the next generation of expert growers. If you have an idea for an article, please contact us.
Our Current Staff and Contributors
Andrew Mefferd is the Editor and Publisher of Growing for Market and the co-owner with his wife, Ann, of One Drop Farm in Cornville, Maine. Andrew has deep and extensive experience in farming. He apprenticed at numerous farms across the U.S. before settling in Maine, where he and Ann raise organic vegetable transplants, hoophouse vegetables, and h**p. He worked for seven years in the research department at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, where he became at expert at protected cultivation and vegetable varieties. He consults widely with researchers and farmers on best practices for greenhouse growing and he is a frequent presenter at conferences worldwide. Andrew is the author of two books: The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook and The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution.
Lynn Byczynski is the founder of Growing for Market, which she started in 1992 and operated until she sold it to Andrew Mefferd in 2016. Lynn and her husband, Dan Nagengast, started farming in 1988 and were pioneers in small-scale, organic production, starting the first CSA in Kansas and the first cooperative CSA in the United States. Lynn was an early adopter of locally grown cut flowers and her book The Flower Farmer continues to inspire and inform a new generation of flower growers. She and her family own and operate Seeds from Italy, the U.S. distributor for Franchi Sementi, Italy’s oldest seed company, providing more than 500 varieties of European heirloom vegetable, herb, and flower seeds.
