The Growing Wave Of Farm Stops: Farm Stop Conference 2026
This February, Argus Farm Stop hosted the third annual Farm Stop Conference, bringing together farmers, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and pillars of local food systems across the country. The conference exists to encourage people nationwide to start their own farm stop, providing them with resources and connections as they navigate their journey toward strengthening local food systems. Since the conference started in 2024, attendance has nearly tripled. I spoke with Casey Miller of Argus Farm Stop about what it takes each year for her and Argus Farm Stop’s team to organize this major event.
This year’s Farm Stop Conference began on Thursday, February 12, with tours of Argus Farm Stop, a welcome reception, and a speaker dinner. Argus Farm Stop’s team of organizers, including Casey, Alex Blume, Laura Matney, and Laura Topf, arrived at Washtenaw Community College the next day at 6:00 A.M. to begin setting up. They decorated tables, prepared signage, and took care of the AV pieces or any last minute preparations before serving breakfast at 8:00 A.M. Over 250 local food lovers shuffled in over the next two days to participate in the most important weekend for farm stops of the year.
The conference hosted 38 knowledgeable presenters across 28 sessions. Casey scheduled breakout sessions after some of the presentations to give attendees the opportunity to discuss the material and ask questions. This year’s presentations covered a wide range of topics, including how to find funding for farm stops, build farmer relationships, and create food access through SNAP benefits and local food access programs. These presentations and breakout sessions are a great way to network and get to know other like-minded people across the country who share a common goal of creating a strong local food economy that supports farmers and their local communities.
One of the key presenters at this year’s Farm Stop Conference was former Georgia House Representative Stacey Abrams. Abrams found out about Argus Farm Stop through our feature in the New York Times. Shortly after reading the article, her team reached out to Casey to inquire about Abrams presenting at the Farm Stop Conference. Abrams arrived in Ann Arbor Saturday morning, February 14, and headed straight to the conference to give a forty-five minute speech on farm stops’ critical role in the United States’ local food economies. She discussed how farm stops ensure food security, cultivate community, and uplift democracy.
For the past several years, Abrams has spent her time learning about food systems in Atlanta, Georgia, witnessing food insecurity among farmers and neighboring communities. Abrams believes in the power of farm stops as a way to solve food insecurity, and is currently in the process of opening three farm stops in Georgia.
Farm stops are a critical element in strengthening the local food economy and creating success for small, local farms, many of which are otherwise dying out due to farmers' lack of income and ability to maintain their farmland. As a critical element of local food systems, it is important that more people become aware and invested in starting farm stops across the country. This is why Casey’s job is so important—planning the Farm Stop Conference each year is essential to providing education, resources, and connections for people interested in starting this process.
Bill and Kathy Sample started Argus Farm Stop over a decade ago with their first location on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They only knew of one other farm stop, Local Roots Market & Cafe in Wooster, Ohio. Farm stops, unlike many major grocery stores, enable farmers to make a steady, reliable income from the produce they provide to our communities. While farmers make on average 15 cents for every dollar of produce sold through traditional grocery stores, the farm stop consignment model allows farmers to set their own prices and pays farmers the majority of each sale. Argus Farm Stop’s consignment model pays farmers 70% of each sale.
Another key element of a farm stop is that it exclusively sells local farmers’ produce. Everything sold at Argus Farm Stop is grown or produced locally, with most products being grown here in South East Michigan. Unlike many farmers markets, farm stops are open seven days a week, year-round, which increases food access and income for local farmers.
Farm stops are a “weird, unique business model,” and more than three years ago, many people were unaware of what a farm stop is or how it contributes to a local food economy. Hosting a conference so that others could learn about this business model was something Bill, Kathy, Casey, and others at Argus Farm Stop were thinking about for years. When they started planning the first one in 2023, the team began by reaching out to the eight other farm stops they knew of at the time. Casey described their initial meeting as “forty people sitting around in a circle” talking about the rewards and challenges of running a farm stop. Since then, it’s grown significantly, with Argus Farm Stop hosting 245 people this year from 36 states. As of this year, 27 farm stops exist in the U.S., with 22 opening soon.
When Casey started planning the first conference, she had “no idea there would be this kind of demand.” At the time, the Farm Stop Conference was marketed completely through word-of-mouth. Although Argus Farm Stop had no other channels of advertising it, capacity filled due to Casey and others on the team reaching out to people about the importance of farm stops to the local food economy. The conference was hosted in 2024 at Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor. It was a beautiful space to kick off the conference and usher in the pinnacle event representing the farm stop movement.
Each year, the Farm Stop Conference becomes “more efficient, garnering more interest.” Argus Farm Stop currently utilizes multiple channels to market the conference, including social media, news media coverage, and webinars on how to start a farm stop, hosted by Bill and Kathy throughout the year. In 2025, 400 people attended these webinars, which is a significant number of people who are now educated on the farm stop model.
Programming is equally as important for the conference as marketing. Casey begins seeking out and meeting with presenters months in advance to ensure a wide variety of topics can be covered during the conference’s three day duration. Argus Farm Stop has “always been very hands on with the programming.” Casey noted, “we decide what topics we’re going to present on, we seek the best presenters—it’s a lot of big picture conversation and over time we whittle it down and eventually land on a schedule.” By the time the Farm Stop Conference is done, over 1,000 hours of staff time will have been committed to planning the conference and 100 hours of staff time will have been committed to running it.
While it may seem like a lot, the time and effort it takes to plan the Farm Stop Conference is worth it. The conference brings together hundreds of people who are passionate about supporting farmers and strengthening the local food economy. By starting their own farm stops, they play a critical role in ensuring local farms can thrive and in ensuring their community remains food secure. The entire process of starting a farm stop can be overwhelming, which is why the conference is so important. It acts as an educational space, offering a variety of resources for people as they navigate an otherwise difficult and lengthy process. It also gets people excited about supporting local food. As Casey describes it, the “momentum and energy of the conference is incredible.”
This year’s conference was sponsored by many great local organizations, including Fair Food Network, A2Zero, Michigan’s Department of Agriculture & Rural Development, and the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. Fair Food Network has been Argus Farm Stop’s primary sponsor for the Farm Stop Conference since it began in 2024. Casey expressed a deep gratitude for Fair Food Network and all of our sponsors, mentioning that “we truly could not do this work without their support.” These organizations are a huge component in making the Farm Stop Conference possible.
If there is anything Casey wants people interested in starting farm stops to take away from the Farm Stop Conference, it is that they are not alone in this work. Bill and Kathy started Argus Farm Stop with the goal of strengthening the local food economy by supporting local farmers and building community. Casey and others at Argus Farm Stop have helped achieve this goal by connecting people from all backgrounds over a common love of local food. The Farm Stop Conference could not exist without their work or the work of its presenters and sponsors.
More information about this year’s Farm Stop Conference can be found at farmstops.net, the go-to page for farm stop news. You can find a full list of the conference’s sponsors here. You can see sections of Stacey Abrams’ electrifying keynote presentation here.
If you are interested in speaking at the Farm Stop Conference in the future, Casey plans to implement a Request for Proposal process for next year’s conference so people can send her their proposals to present. Sign up for Argus Farm Stop’s External Training newsletter here! You can see all the training opportunities that Argus Farm Stop operates at our Learn From Us page.