Project F.A.R.M.

As the First-class American Rural Made concept grows and you see our Project F.A.R.M. label on more and more products nationwide, you’ll know you’re supporting rural people like Miss Wilma and Friends of Kentucky (who boasts she’s burned up seven sewing machines making pillows for us), or the women of rural Idaho who stitched our “Farmgirl at Heart” tote bags, or Kaspar Wire Works of Shiner, Texas, who helped us create a line of wire baskets and flower frogs.

Rural Defined

How big is too big? Using our rural area as a guide, we came up with a standard for defining rural that incorporates something familiar to almost everyone: stoplights! Any locale that has less than 40 stoplights is rural in our book. As we add more artisans to our project, you’ll see our PROJECT F.A.R.M. “stoplight code” popping up more and more. If you’d like to read the guidelines in full, or find out what’s required to submit a product for certification, click below.

In order to have the products you make be considered for PROJECT F.A.R.M. certification, you must comply with the following steps:

  1. Live and create your products in a small town of fewer than 40 stoplights.
  2. Create your products with care and the knowledge that you have made them as safe, pure, and with the highest standards as possible. You must follow safe manufacturing principles of cleanliness and sanitation to ensure the safety of your end products. You should feel pride that the quality of your workmanship will bring pleasure to those who purchase and use them. In short, they must be made with love.
  3. You must have a business resale license from your state, enabling you to do business in a legal manner and report and pay your taxes appropriately.
  4. You must have a Web presence, either your own site to show and describe your products, or a relatively inexpensive arrangement with a “free” service like etsy.
  5. You must be set up to accept online credit card payments. Your bank or PayPal can help you with that.
  6. Only after all of the above is in place, may you then contact MaryJanesFarm for the “seal of approval” from PROJECT F.A.R.M..
  7. That will require you to send a sample of your product for review by the acceptance committee. Your product will be reviewed for workmanship, presentation, and ingredient quality (in the case of body care products).
  8. If you must have your sample returned to you, please include return postage arrangements or your shipping ID.
  9. If the volume of products supplied to MaryJanesFarm for review from prospective affiliates becomes overwhelming, we reserve the right to charge a handling fee for the review process to fund the extra labor needed to handle the workload.

If your product is chosen to wear our “seal of approval” once our committee has reviewed it, we will send you our Project F.A.R.M. logo that you can use on your approved product. You can apply it to a sticker, a hangtag, or some other form of marketing to proudly display your achievement. However, we make no estimates as to the future success of your venture based on our affiliation. (Our crystal ball has been out of order for some time now!) All business arrangements will be directly between you and the online shopper. MaryJanesFarm (and all of its employees) shall be held harmless for any difficulties that may arise from any of your online business dealings.

However, you just never know where things can lead! MaryJane is happy to be in a position to be able to offer this “helping hand” to others in small communities. She knows what it’s like.

They say “many hands make light work.” We also believe that satisfying work makes a light heart, and that the products made with pleasure can pass along that happy vibration to those who purchase them, which in turn, supports those who make them.

To be able to live in a small town and make a living there has been a challenge for many in the past. MaryJane Butters knows that as well as anyone does. She hopes to change things for the better with her PROJECT F.A.R.M. idea, and she invites you to join in this new adventure.

Send us an email, to begin the review process: iris@maryjanesfarm.org

Buying something made by hand from someone you “know” is MaryJane’s concept of how the world should be, and once was, not so very long ago. Look for the PROJECT F.A.R.M. mark on products in stores near you or online.

Watch how Project F.A.R.M. helps support three local families in the video below.

CALL TO ACTION:

If you know of a First-class American Rural Made business/product that you think should be promoted as a Project F.A.R.M. endeavor, please let us know by contacting iris@maryjanesfarm.org.

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