Urbana, Illinois
February 3, 2009
Since 2003, the University of
Illinois
MarketMaker website has been helping connect farmers and
producers to markets. The website, which began as a free online
database of Illinois businesses, has recently received a
makeover.
There are currently 10 states whose websites are up and running:
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Kentucky,
Ohio, Mississippi, and Georgia. Colorado, Washington D.C. and
South Carolina have websites that are under construction.
The national portal can be found at
http://national.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/
"MarketMaker has grown exponentially since it was first kicked
off in Illinois 5 years ago," said Darlene Knipe, Marketing
Specialist for University of Illinois and one of the founders of
the MarketMaker program. "As more and more states went live it
became apparent that our system could not accommodate the level
of site activity we were experiencing."
The MarketMaker website has one of the largest collections of
searchable food industry-related data in the country. The
information is categorized by buyers, sellers, location and
other demographic information. Knipe said that it's more than
just an online directory, because it features a mapping
capability, allowing easy location of nearby food sources. The
site provides a quick, yet simple method of searching for
food-related products in detail, looking for attributes such as
humanely-raised or organically grown and product forms such as
fresh or frozen.
Knipe said that MarketMaker is now not only faster, but the
stage has been set for a suite of new features and improvements.
One new addition to the website is the MarketMaker Blog where a
team of MarketMaker bloggers will share their insights and
expertise. And, the Buyers Sellers Forum will now include a
calendar of product availability. Businesses who are registered
on the site will also be able to track how many users have
viewed their information and for what reason.
Future plans for the site include increasing the amount of
educational material available. "We have long known the value of
MarketMaker's searchable directory of farmers and food related
businesses. It is our strong suit," Knipe said. "But MarketMaker
can also be a powerful tool for information and education."
Knipe said that MarketMaker's national network of partners
includes 14 Land Grant Universities, including the Agricultural
Marketing Resource Center (AgMRC) at Iowa State University.
"We have a lot of expertise in areas of food and agriculture on
the National Food MarketMaker team," Knipe said. "We plan to
showcase that."
There is no charge associated with having a business listed on
the site. For more information, contact Darlene Knipe
(dknipe@illinois.edu; 309-792-2500).
MarketMaker is a collaboration between the University of
Illinois Initiative for the Development of Entrepreneurship in
Agriculture (IDEA), the Illinois Department of Agriculture and
C-FAR (Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research). The
project was funded by the Illinois Department of Agriculture,
University of Illinois Extension, and the Illinois Council on
Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR). |
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