California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) released a comprehensive Small Organic Farmer Marketing Toolkit for small-scale and underserved organic producers. The toolkit, available in English and Spanish, provides actionable strategies for farmers to improve the marketing of their organic products. The toolkit serves as a guide that reduces the market accessibility gap between family farmers and large-scale operations that have their own marketing departments.

CCOF designed the Small Organic Farmer Marketing Toolkit to provide producers with the concepts, strategies, and insights needed to successfully market organic products, boost sales, and expand their customer base.

The toolkit covers marketing essentials including identifying target audiences; branding and business identity; direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and business-to-business sales and marketing channels; marketing tips for websites, email, and social media; making the most of farmers markets and trade shows; and more.

Through CCOF’s partnership with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), the toolkit will be disseminated to approximately 500 producers. CAFF will provide 600 hours of technical assistance and 18 trainings, both in-person and virtual, to build the marketing skills that small and underserved organic farmers and transitioning farmers need to access new markets.

“We are thrilled to provide this toolkit to help small and underserved producers improve their marketing reach and connect with more customers,” says CCOF CEO Kelly Damewood. “We are proud to work with CAFF to get it into people’s hands and start seeing positive results.”
The first training opportunity will take place at EcoFarm, an organic farming conference held annually at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA, on Thursday, January 23, from 10:30am – 12:00pm. The workshop “Sell More of What You Grow” will introduce the toolkit including concepts and practical steps to enter new markets.  “We are excited to partner with CCOF to make marketing resources more accessible for farmers.

Throughout the rest of 2025 and through 2026, we will host a series of no-cost workshops so that every farmer has the opportunity to strengthen their marketing skills,” says Grace Jackson, Farmer Services Central Valley Regional Lead.

The Small Organic Farmer Marketing Toolkit is made possible by an Organic Market Development Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service, Marketing to Expand Economic Opportunity for Small and Underserved Farmers. The toolkit is part of the $3 million grant CCOF received from the USDA in 2024 to open and expand new revenue streams for the organic industry and create more opportunities for American farmers.