Short supply chains: What are the challenges of local commerce?

Today's farmers must face demands for growth and consumption that are ever more vast. Quality production in quantity becomes more difficult to profitably monetize. The short circuit can then prove to be a distribution proposition that allows compensating for the deficit of more traditional commercial exchanges. This alternative marketing method limits intermediaries between the farmer and the consumer for a more direct service and therefore more favorable to producers of agricultural raw materials. How are these short circuits defined?

Table of Contents :

• A concept with many advantages

• Direct sales

• Sales through intermediaries

Given its definition, the short circuit calls for a certain geographical proximity or relational proximity between the producer and the consumer. This, even if there are no specific criteria concerning the distance for a circuit to be qualified as short. It is then possible to classify according to several criteria. The first is that of the number of participants between the producer and the consumer. 

The second factor separates direct or indirect sales. The farmer who proceeds with direct sales benefits from an activity in complete independence with price setting that is more equitable regarding their labor. They must then combine the roles of producer and merchant of their products. The various practices of short circuits offer consumers an authenticity factor increasingly sought after nowadays, in addition to providing direct contact to promote the quality of products.

Among the different facets of commercial exchanges in short circuits, direct sales itself takes several forms. We can mention farm sales or the farm store with which producers can sell their products directly on their production site. We can thus find butcher shops, cheese dairies or even bakeries right on the farm. It is also possible to encounter pick-your-own sites either in self-service or in self-harvest. In self-service, the consumer picks the harvest and pays for the quantity collected. In self-harvest, they proceed to purchase a production in advance and come to harvest what they desire. This could be, for example, purchasing a fruit tree. In some farms, producers orient their products toward catering for farm products, rather than toward selling raw materials. This takes the form of meals eaten on site. Finally, in a more ephemeral way, certain organized events allow products to be highlighted during events at certain periods.

Still in direct sales, but outside the farm, markets bring together all kinds of resellers of various products. For certain seasonal items, there is also roadside selling which still requires authorization from the municipality to be set up. Outside of markets, there are fair sales or trade shows, or even collective sales points. A final distribution option is mail order sales for home delivery or at pickup points for meat packages, vegetable baskets, dairy products and others.

If they do not proceed with direct sales, the producer can use a single intermediary while remaining in a short circuit. They can for example make their sales through another producer. They can also offer retail sales. This can be organic stores, local products, local stores (grocery stores, bakeries, butcher shops and others). Large retail chains also increasingly accept local and fair trade products.

There is also sales to communities (schools, corporate cafeterias, hospitals), directly to restaurants, or via producer cooperatives. The democratization of online platforms also generates a space of choice for the sale of farm products.

The various facets of production and sales in short circuits therefore allow today's farmers to efficiently develop their operations with an added value of local authenticity increasingly sought after by consumers while offering a more equitable return on production costs. The short circuit establishes itself as an indispensable player in modern agriculture.