February 2026 Farm Marketing News
Last month we shared information regarding several funding sources that can be used for marketing activities. This month, we’re sharing a case study that demonstrates the impact that a strategic marketing plan can have on a small family farm. We know marketing can be overwhelming for folks who aren’t in that space regularly, so this report breaks down the strategy while showing the direct impact of these activities. I hope you’ll give it a look!
We’re also sharing information about 2 upcoming webinars — one for farmers and one for food systems professionals, featuring our very own Brooklyn Maloley — plus updates to your farm marketing tools.
Want to be the first to find out about the latest in farm marketing news and updates from Grapevine? Sign up for our newsletter!
How Champlin’s Sugar Creek Farm Tripled Sales
Champlin’s Sugar Creek Farm is a family-owned and operated Wisconsin cattle ranch raising 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef. After working with Grapevine to develop and implement a marketing strategy that included a logo and branding package, an e-commerce website, Drip email automations, targeted social advertising, and on/offsite SEO tactics, the farm saw their sales triple. Read the case study to learn how they did this while actually spending less time on marketing and more time on the farm.
Upcoming Webinars
NAFSN: Finding Your Future In Food Systems
Do you know someone who’s interested in becoming a food systems professional? Help spread the word! North American Food Systems Network (NAFSN) is putting on their 10th season of the webinar series, "Finding Your Future in Food Systems," and our very own Brooklyn Maloley will be one of the featured speakers on Wed, March 11 at 6pm ET, along with Monica Chen of New Roots Institute and Amirah Dales of Capital Area Food Bank.
How Food Hubs Work With Producers: Onboarding, Support, Success from Local Food Marketplace
Join our friends at LFM on Thursday, February 19 at 11am PT for a live conversation with High Country Food Hub as they share a practical, behind-the-scenes look at how they work with producers.
In this live session, High Country will share:
Their producer onboarding process
Requirements for selling through the hub
How they train and support producers for long-term success
The mix of informal guidance and 1:1 support they provide over time
If you’re thinking about improving producer relationships, tightening onboarding, or building more consistent support systems, this will be a great opportunity to hear what’s working in real life.
Conference: 38th Annual California Small Farm Conference (Hybrid)
The 38th Annual California Small Farm Conference returns February 22–27, 2026! This statewide hybrid event features 50+ online workshops plus in-person gatherings in 10 regions — from San Diego to Humboldt.
This year’s theme, Digging In Together: Small Farms, Deep Resolve, celebrates the perseverance of farmers and the collaboration needed to build a just and resilient food system.
Admission is sliding-scale.
Our very own Brooklyn Maloley will be co-presenting one of the online webinars, Sell More of What You Grow with the Small Organic Farmer Marketing Toolkit, on Tuesday, Feb 24 at 9:45am PST. She'll share strategies for building an online presence through tools like social media, websites, and email marketing. Resources will be available in English and Spanish, with practical tips to apply right away.
Project Highlight: Advertising for Adena Farms
We developed a series of targeted Google ads and Meta ads to drive direct-to-consumer shipping sales for this Florida grass-fed beef farm. Our campaigns were an important part of getting the word out about their newly expanded shipping range, and led to an increase in sales within a few weeks. Check out Adena Farms’s advertising campaign.
Farm Marketing Updates
Klaviyo
Klaviyo has released a new social auto-replies feature. Now you can create campaigns encouraging followers to join your email or text message lists directly through Instagram DMs, using keyword triggers and auto-replies.
Coupon Blocks are now available in your Klaviyo email editor so you can add and style coupons easier than ever before. Learn more and get started!
Square
Save time by bulk editing items right in your Dashboard. You can now update multiple library items simultaneously instead of changing them one by one. Square also has a new Stock Overview page on Square Dashboard to simplify inventory management — see real-time stock and edit quantities instantly from your POS or computer.
Square now offers an automatic surcharge feature for credit card payments, allowing you to recover processing costs without increasing your shelf prices. Turn it on in Square Dashboard, set a percentage up to 3%, and Square will automatically add this fee when a credit card is detected at checkout. The fee appears at checkout and on receipts to reduce confusion and disputes. For retailers competing with larger chains, this tool helps preserve margins while keeping prices customer-facing and checkout simple. (Surcharging is not legal in some states, and restricted in others.)
Meet Farm Trader
Farm Trader is a family-owned and operated platform connecting farmers directly with consumers who want to buy local, additionally serving as a marketplace for land and livestock. Through their blog, Farm Chatter, they also share today’s top ag stories, trends, farming tips, and ways to stay connected to local farms.
What We’ve Been Up To
Thank you to Aja Ewing of Heron’s Llŷn Farm in Orwell, VT, for leading the Grapevine Team in a Visible Mending class!
Aja is a sheep farmer and fiber artist who specializes in spinning, dying, and creating with local wool. Aja taught us simple techniques to transform worn, ripped clothing into practical and wearable pieces of art and we learned the basics of patchwork, embroidery, and darning.
We are a fully remote team spread across the states, from New York to California to Puerto Rico, so it was wonderful to connect by learning this creative practice together.
Get farm marketing news in your inbox
Sign up to get information like this email delivered every month or so to your inbox.
More Local Food Marketing Resources
###update the block below’s settings, then delete this note + bullets:
Content > Primary Metadata > None
Design > toggle on Wrap Summary Items with a Link
Design > Size and spacing > toggle on Use Columns Number instead of Column Width
Set Desktop columns number to 3
Toggle on Use separate settings for mobiles (<641px width); set Mobile columns number to 2 and Mobile columns gutter to 15
Lazy Settings > Enable Lazy Summary load (more than 30 items)
Set Items number to load to 12
