Rooted Farmers, Inc.

Awards Issued Prior to January 20, 2025, Were Funded Under Previous Administrations and May Not Reflect the Priorities and Policies of the Current Administration. Rooted Farmers Has Developed a Dynamic Online Platform That Provides Broad, Regional Market Access Across Wholesale and Retail Channels for Small- and Mid-sized Farms. Our Current Platform Services Domestic Floriculture and Is Differentiated by Its Capacity to Seamlessly Standardize and Aggregate Supply Across a Fragmented, Rural Supply Chain via a Dynamic, Database Driven Solution That Uniquely Services the Producer Hub Model. Launched Nationwide in 2020, We Have Since Scaled to More Than 530 Farms, 30 Producer Hubs/cooperatives, and 3,000 Wholesale Buyers Across the Country, With Robust Supplier Hubs in Northern New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, New Mexico, Utah, California, and More. Active Users Demonstrate a Significant Reduction in Labor Hours (75%+) With Simultaneous Revenue Growth (250% Average Increases), Attributable to ROOTED'S Streamlined Purchasing Process, Farm-tailored Inventory Management Tools, and a Demonstrated Network Effect. Through Phase I, the Rooted Farmers Team Made Significant Progress on a User-informed Application to Service Other Modes of Specialty Crop Agriculture. Research Included Three Main Phases: First, the Team Administered a Quantitative Survey to Collect Demographic Data and Define Major Pain Points for Farmers; This Survey Identified That Over 80% of Participants Believe That Their Ability to Attract New Buyers and Their Ability to Manage Inventory Across All Farm Products Are Key to Their BUSINESSES' Future Success. Second, We Conducted Qualitative Interviews With 20 Small Farms, 23 Buyers and 9 Hub Administrators Serving More Than 400 Small- and Midsized Farms Nationwide. Finally, by Integrating Buyer and Seller Feedback, as Well as Expertise From Key Industry Partners, the Rooted Team Created Static Prototypes on Which We Collected Feedback From Users. Our Key Discovery: the Most Critical First Step to Solving This Problem at Scale for Small and Mid-sized Farms Is to Begin With a Foundational Solution for Food Hubs. Now, in Phase Ii, Our Rooted Farmers Team WILL:(1) Complete the Development of the Functional Online Food-based PLATFORM;(2) Work With Commercialization Partners, Including Agricultural Experts and Economists at Theuniversity of New HAMPSHIRE'S College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and CORNELL'S Collegeof Agriculture and Life Sciences, Transportation and Logistics Experts at Rensselaer Polytechnicinstitute, and Operators at Food Hubs, Farms, and Wholesale Buyers Across the Nation to Completeearly-stage, Real-world Testing of the Platform and Collect Success Metrics in Terms of Labor Hours,sales, Profitability, and Quality of Life for Users; AND(3) Scale-up Efforts to Expand the Customer Base and Prepare for Bringing the Rooted Farmersplatform to Market.by the End of the Two-year Phase Ii Project, We Will Have Developed and Be Prepared to Roll Out a Technology Product That Empowers Small- and Mid-size Farms to Streamline Oper,ations and Become More Economically Viable, While Also Making Our NATION'S Food Chain More Resilient and Robust.