Trust & verification
How we verify farms
Farm information on the internet rots fast: farms close, hours change with the harvest, and some “farm stands” are resellers with a barnwood sign. So every listing on FarmHop carries a verification badge and a freshness label — and the colors mean the same thing everywhere in the product. Here’s how to read them.
The trust ramp
- Owner verified
Owner verified / Staff verified
The farm's owner proved they run it — via an email address on the farm's own website domain, a one-time code to the contact email already on the listing, or a verification token placed on their site — or our staff confirmed it directly. The strongest signal there is.
- Community confirmed
Community confirmed
A real visitor confirmed the place recently. They went, it was there, it was open.
- Web checked
Web checked
Our systems recently found live, consistent signals: an active website, current posts, a working phone number. Good — but machine-grade, and labeled as such.
- Imported, check first
Imported, check first
The listing came from a public data source — a state agriculture registry, a farm directory, the farm's own site — and nobody has confirmed it since. It's probably fine. Call anyway.
Freshness beats color
Listings also show when we last checked them — “checked this week,” “checked this month” — because verification is a photograph, not a guarantee. A green badge from last October is worth less than an amber one somebody confirmed on Saturday.
And when a farm closes, we mark it closed instead of quietly deleting it, so you’re never left wondering whether the empty listing you remember was ever real.
Where listings come from
The map is built from public sources — state agriculture registries, farm directories, farms’ own websites — plus farmer-submitted updates. Farmers list and edit for free, with no commission and no pay-to-rank: a farm can’t buy a better badge, it can only earn one by proving it’s real.
Run a farm? List or claim your farm free — verified owners control every field on their listing.
Take FarmHop with you
Fresh-food alerts, watchlists, and turn-by-turn to the farm stand. Free on iPhone.