First, this is my first attempt in gathering, analyzing and interpreting data since college. I'm a bit on a limb here, meaning I need help, meaning if you find that any procedure, calculation and/or argumentation that I used is completely flawed, please let me know!
Second, this is the first part of the "study". I want to make sure that I'm not doing a bad job, inflating or deflating numbers, as I want to present this report officially to argue for our Farmer's Market in the future.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Foreword
The Cotacachi Farmer’s Market is an independent, community-driven market in Cotacachi, Imbabura, Ecuador that gives producers from the region a place to sell, focusing on organic and artisan products. Besides the economical and ecological impacts, it has also turned into a cultural hub, bringing together a vast variety of ethnicities, cultures and nationalities.
It’s been 10 years now since Lindsay Numedahl started this adventure, and we’ve since come along way. From 5 vendors to over 105 vendors, from only expat vendors to mostly Ecuadorian sellers, from only expat clients to a healthy 50/50 mix. We handled ourselves through many ups and downs, including a pandemic, nationwide strikes and a total of 6 moves, among other difficulties.
In July 2025, we conducted a survey to quantify the extent of our impact. This is not a professional survey, nor is the data analysis and interpretation a solemn truth. As with everything regarding our little big market, there’s a multitude of perspectives to take into account, including misunderstanding questions, illiteracy, calculation problems, and others that might have affected the outcome. But with a total of 98 answers, we hope to have reached a big enough sample to balance out those errors.
We will go through each question with the respective range of answers, and then work through some correlations. Survey and interpretation are done by me, one of the co-founders of the Farmer’s Market.
Note: The numbers displayed were created in a German excel-sheet. Thousands are separated by dots (.), while decimals are separated by comma (,). That’s opposite to some countries, especially the USA.
Question 1 - Revenue
Question:
What’s your average revenue at the Farmer’s Market?
[ ] $0 - $25
[ ] $26 - $50
[ ] $51 - $100
[ ] $101 - $250
[ ] $251- $500
[ ] $501- $1000
[ ] more than $1000
Data Analysis
Since we couldn’t ask everyone for the exact average revenue, we settled for ranges. I used the middle of each range to calculate the total income. Please consider that due to that process, there is a margin of error involved in the calculation for total revenue generated on each market day.
The median of the answers for average revenue generated in one day lies in the 26-50$ range. With that, we can establish that half of our members sell more than 50$ per day, and the other half less than 50$. Among the 6 segments we chose, this places the typical revenue of one vendor in the second-lowest tier. Though that sounds disappointing, it actually indicates that although many of us are operate on a smaller scale, we also have a good amount of vendors operating with modest Revenue levels.
The calculated average income based on the answers is 35,84$. In Cotacachi, the income for an 8h day of work is often around 15$, depending on qualification. Considering that the market only lasts for 3 hours (9am to 12pm), generating that kind of average revenue is a great sign for us. Those 35,84$ were calculated via standardization, giving each range a value (1 to 6), in order to reduce the effect of the outliers.
If we factor in the outliers and the calculated total daily revenue, we come to an average income of 96,94$. For that calculation, the midpoint of each range was taken and multiplied by the number of vendors that marked that range.
With the discussed method, I calculated an 9500$ in average daily revenue is a lot in Ecuador, especially for a small town like Cotacachi. That means, our vendors generate an estimated revenue of $500.000 per year. If we use only the median as a metric, we land in a range of 141.960$ to 273.000$ per year, which is still significant. That median, though leveled out the outliers, which do generate a big portion of the total revenue. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, as always.
Local Impact
Considering that most of that money not only stays within Cotacachi, but is multiplied through the chain of consumption, the overall economic impact is probably a lot higher. As most of our vendors are artisans or local farmers, a big part of the generated revenue stays in Cotacachi.
I estimate a 20% leakage due to taxes, imported goods, external services, meaning the retention rate is around 80% on the first level (the vendors using their revenue to pay workers and such).
On level 2 (the people paid with money from level 1), the retention rate is lower, for example because people use that money to buy things at Tia, our local supermarket that is part of a national conglomerate. I estimate a 40%, as they still pay rent and other expenses that stay locally.
On Level 3, I guess it’s only 20%, maybe even lower, as many parts of daily consumption are part unfortunately go towards giants.
It’s really hard to find data to compare that to. I could say that with an GDP per capita in Ecuador of 6.600$ and 10.000 inhabitants of the city of Cotacachi, the GDP of Cotacachi is 6,6 Mio. $, which is somewhat likely. But including the rural areas and hence the whole canton of Cotacachi with its 40.000 inhabitants, we can’t use the same GDP, as the income in rural areas is even lower than I the city.
Hence, my conclusions is based on my perception. And that is that our little big Farmer’s Market has a big economic impact here. And that is awesome.
That's it so far. It took me quite a while to get the numbers crunched. Writing the text is not as difficult, but I want to make sure I got it somewhat right, that it's acceptable considering my level of non-expertise.
So, again, thank you for reading and taking the time to point out the flaws in my procedures and argumentation! Also, if you think that other points could be made, please let me know!