Every year at CrowdFarming we send a survey to all of our farmers to get feedback on their experience working with us. Why do we do this? Because despite the fact that CrowdFarming sells produce to the public, our “customers” are our farmers, because they are key to change the agri-food supply chain for the better, the main reason why we exist.  If we want to create a service that helps farmers sell their produce directly to European homes, we need to understand what kind of support they need from us to make their job easier. The results are extremely valuable to us, and every year they help us make decisions about our business to offer a better service to them. 

In the farmer survey we ask them a series of questions based on specific topics, namely sales channels, economic stability, agricultural sector challenges, climate conditions, farm costs, farm innovation and improvements, and the transition to organic and regenerative agriculture. 

The survey is quite extensive and detailed, so we send them a letter with a summary of the key results. Then we thought, why not also share this letter with you?

Hello, farmers! 🌱

We’d like to start by thanking the 146 of you who took part in this year’s survey.

You represent more than 50% of the CrowdFarming farmer community and, thanks to you, we’re learning and making improvements together. The results of the survey show us that your comments aren’t falling on deaf ears. In fact, results are already being seen!

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) has gone up from 37 (last year) to 44 (this year). This indicator reflects the degree to which you’d recommend the platform to other farmers, and the increase shows that more and more of you are satisfied with the experience. This is a shared achievement: you’re an essential part of the definition of CrowdFarming that we all want, and your feedback helps us improve year after year. 

The farmers most satisfied with CrowdFarming are Spanish (51), then Italian (46), closely followed by French (45), and finally German-speaking ones (36). 75% of you say that CrowdFarming has met your expectations, and 11% that it even exceeds them.

“Proud to belong to the CrowdFarming family, part of a movement that is making things happen. Committed to what really matters: leaving a good and healthy foundation for future generations. Living soils, a healthy environment, sustainability, and fair pay”.

“I love it, but I can’t be objective because I’m a fan. I see it as a movement rather than a sales channel. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been aware of organic farming and known that it’s the only option for me, but I discovered regenerative farming thanks to you, and I’ll be eternally grateful for that”. 

1. Price stability, less uncertainty, and higher income

60% of you see prices on CrowdFarming more stable than via other channels (up from 40% in 2023), and less than 3% see them as more unstable. Considering that for 45% of you price volatility is one of the issues that most concerns you, we’re happy to see that the stability provided by CrowdFarming is on the up.

“The stable price and the almost guaranteed sale of a significant percentage of my production gives me so much peace of mind”.

However, we shouldn’t forget that more than 85% of you reported that your expenses are also increasing, mainly those derived from energy and fuel, consumables, and labour.  

We’re happy to see that 62.2% of you have seen an increase in income, and more than 70% have invested in improvements since working with us, whether in new machinery, better facilities, or new recruits. We’re confident that the growth in your income isn’t just impacting your business, but also your community, through job offers, competitive salaries, and the development of economic, social, and cultural activity in your area.

2. Maintaining your characteristic quality

We know how much effort you channel into producing quality food and how important it is for the end consumer to value your work. We understand that being answerable for your product is an extra effort, but we believe that making your role as a producer visible is key to building a fairer food chain, where your work takes the place it deserves.

Much of what we do at CrowdFarming is geared towards making it easier for you to sell directly to the end consumer. More than half of you believe that our service-price ratio is the best, and only 8.4% prefer other channels. Even so, we know we have room for improvement and we continue to strive to be your favourite channel in 100% of cases.

Some of the points you asked us to improve include logistics (20%), visibility of your products (20%), and financial processes (13.5%). Throughout 2024, we developed technological improvements to streamline these processes, reduce time, and offer you tools that make direct selling more efficient. Besides these in-house improvements, you’ll soon get to enjoy new updates to the Farmer Zone, including better dashboards, filters for orders, and access to payout information.

As a result, we’ll continue to improve things so that selling directly to the consumer is increasingly easier and more profitable for you.

“Improvement of the farmer’s sales dashboard and more clarity in payment concepts”.

“I’d like CrowdFarming to offer me more support in the marketing of my products”.

“I think that feedback from the end customer could be improved; we don’t know what they think about our products”.

What’s more, 100% of you told us that you want us to meet more often!

“I think having one or two annual meetings of farmers and Farmer Hunters, and with the other departments, could be very positive. The meeting last June in Valencia was really interesting for me. Let’s hope that there can be more meetings, either with that format or others”.

3. Resilience to adverse weather conditions

Climate change continues to be a major concern, with 73.4% of you noticing how droughts and heatwaves are challenging your work on the farm every day and impacting your production, with 70% of you having seen your harvest reduced due to these factors.

We believe that organic and regenerative agriculture is the main way to withstand these climate extremes, which is why we’re always looking for producers converting to organic to join CrowdFarming and receive support for the transition.

What’s more, there are more and more of you in the Regenerative Agriculture Programme, measuring the impact of your practices on soil health, biodiversity and water, taking action to improve these aspects, and making your farms more resilient. These results will give us real evidence of your positive impact that we can share with the entire CrowdFarmer community and continue to enjoy its support in this transition. More than 60 of you have already signed up! 

“Together we want to change and improve the world, shifting all agriculture from conventional to organic and/or regenerative”.

“We wholeheartedly believe in this project: organic and regenerative agriculture, a project for the future”.

“CrowdFarming has given me the impetus I needed to start applying regenerative practices on my farm”.

“I’m convinced that regenerative agriculture is the future”.

Many of you — whether you’re part of the programme — already implement regenerative practices, with more than half of you applying plant remains to the soil, reducing tillage, or maintaining plant cover. More than 40% of you make your own compost, almost 20% of you are integrating livestock on your farms, and some of you are installing insect hotels (28%) or applying other biodiversity measures such as biological corridors, planting native trees, creating biodiversity ponds, or installing bird feeders. 

Among the main difficulties you come across in the transition to organic and regenerative agriculture are a lack of knowledge and a shortage of financial aid. We’ve launched the “1% for the Soil” initiative to allocate 1% of the sales of farmers in the Regenerative Agriculture Programme (part of our margin and which won’t affect your prices) to support the training, monitoring, and awareness-raising of regenerative agriculture, so we hope we can help you on these fronts. We’ve even made a film about organic-regenerative agriculture with some of you!

Your voice is key to building a platform that adapts to your needs and challenges, which is why we truly listen to it when deciding our priorities for the coming year.

Thank you for your commitment and hard work when it comes to building the world’s fairest and most sustainable agri-food chain.

Warm regards,

The CrowdFarming Team