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Jonathan Guzman, a young professional living in Brooklyn, has one sure destination every Saturday morning: the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket.
It’s close to Guzman’s apartment in Park Slope, but the real draw is what’s sold there and whom he meets. “There’s local fruit like husk cherries and sugar plums,” Guzman says, “and of course, kale, spinach, all kinds of lettuces and a wide array of herbs.”
The outdoor, year-round market is where he talks to farmers and buys meat, milk and buttermilk to brine whole chickens. He’s discovered “the best eggs I’ve gotten in a long time” and extras such as maple syrup. Although he does some shopping at the many stores in his neighborhood, the farmers’ market is his main stop.
Farmers’ markets across the country have come into their own in the last few decades, moving from a rare sight to an accepted part of community life in large cities such as Washington, D.C. and Atlanta and in small ones such as Des Moines, Iowa and Dodge City, Kansas.
Customers, too, have morphed from food novelty tourists to regular shoppers.
And for farmers, the ability to sell directly to consumers without a cut for the middleman has made these markets a lifeline for small- and medium-sized farms.
National nonprofit American Farmland Trust (AFT), with a mission to protect farmland, promote sound farming practices and keep farmers on the land, has collected data on farmers’ markets and highlights their scope across the country. Going on right now, AFT’s 16th annual America’s Farmers Market Celebration™ allows market customers to vote for their favorite market, thereby giving local markets publicity and the chance to win prize money. Voting continues until the end of July.
Farmers’ Markets Show and Support Sustainability
Julia Freedgood, senior program adviser for American Farmland Trust, has a long history with farmers’ markets, which started in the 1980s in a Tufts University program that aimed to support farmers and to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to those needing nutritional aid.
“Farmers were struggling to stay viable,” Freedgood says, as they found that small- and medium-sized farms in the Northeast could not be profitable by selling only wholesale.
When Freedgood started working for AFT in the late ’80s on a dual mission of saving farmland for farming and good land stewardship, she saw farmers’ markets as ambassadors for farmers, giving them sales but also connection to communities.
Freedgood, who specializes in farmland protection, agricultural viability and sustainable food systems, thinks farmers’ markets are a big piece of community food resilience, a need the pandemic brought into stark relief. She says, “COVID-19 was a canary in a mine, exposing the fault lines of global food systems.” The pandemic shocked consumers who found empty shelves at supermarkets. Communities with established local and regional food systems pivoted quickly to fill gaps.
“Places that had local food systems did better during COVID-19,” Freedgood says, and this resiliency can be a model for the future. “We’re in very polarized times,” she says. “Farmers’ markets give people opportunities to bridge those gaps.”
At markets, farmers can explain to customers what it takes to grow food, she says, giving residents in towns and cities more appreciation of rural life. Likewise, interacting at farmers’ markets helps rural farmers appreciate their urban neighbors.
“People go to the farmers and get to know each other,” she continues. It’s tangible, not theoretical.
Customers learn that farmers intend to be “good stewards of their land. We need the public to understand that,” she says, adding that this is the work of AFT, connecting agriculture to those who consume food and helping them to realize “we all have a lot in common — everyone wants access to healthy food.”
“Going forward, communities need to plan for farms and food and create a supportive environment to sustain agriculture,” says Freedgood.
Where most food systems planning has focused on urban issues, in her forthcoming book, Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems: From Soil to Soil, Freedgood offers a holistic view, including rural communities and production agriculture that are so critical to public and environmental health, and ensuring an abundant food supply.” These efforts, Freedgood says, go beyond farmers’ markets to “bring people together and strengthen communities.”
Farmers’ Markets Moving the Needle
Farmers’ market participation for Catt Fields White began in 2008 when she found that her San Diego neighborhood had plenty of restaurants and other stores but nowhere nearby that sold produce. She organized a farmers’ market, now the largest in San Diego, drawing 22,000 attendees each Saturday to 200 tents.
White, an educator who founded and leads Farmers Market Pros that provides consulting services to farmers’ markets, also has a podcast on farm marketing called Tent Talks.
There’s no doubt, she says, that farmers’ markets are popular with customers for the quality of the products and the sense of community.
Despite the abundance of markets, even in disadvantaged communities and small towns, “we have not seen that sales are going down in any way,” White says. She adds that when she started in farmers’ markets, it was estimated that 2 percent of grocery consumers did significant shopping in farmers’ markets; a recent survey indicated that 12 to 14 percent shop regularly at these markets.
“I would love to see a farmers’ market on every corner,” White muses, adding that the tricky part is the limited number of farmers, as that population ages and retires, and there is a persistent difficulty in finding available and affordable land.
AFT’s work to keep farmers on land and help beginning farmers find land resulted this spring in its endorsement of the Farm Transition Act in Congress to address these problems.
Although there is plenty of anecdotal evidence on farmers’ markets’ popularity, data is sometimes hard to find.
One source, though, in Minnesota is FM360, where Joseph Nowak, who researches local food systems for his PhD project, and partner, University of Minnesota Professor Hikaru Peterson, delve into metrics to aid market managers to make informed decisions and to give market advocates data to articulate the value to the economy of farmers’ markets and of small- to medium-sized farms. The program, which started with a UMN grant in 2016, has grown from producing metrics on 12 markets in 2016 to 71 in 2023.
“We’re finally being able to put some numbers behind the markets’ importance to the consumer and farmers,” Nowak said.
Sometimes, he muses, the enjoyable ambience of farmers’ markets makes people forget that they’re “a really critical part of the working food system as well.”
This is true not only for farmers who get a full retail price for their products but also for consumers. who sometimes have little or no other access to healthy food in their neighborhoods. The many national, state and local programs that help the disadvantaged stretch their SNAP payments to buy fruits and vegetables add to the importance of farmers’ markets.
Farmers’ markets are essential and educational
COVID-19 restrictions highlighted the role of metrics, Nowak explains.
In March 2020 when businesses were closed down, farmers’ markets were at first deemed “nonessential.” However, FM360 data changed that in Minnesota. “Growing didn’t stop” with COVID-19, Nowak says, adding that their data helped convince authorities that farmers relied on the markets to sell their goods and then were considered “essential” businesses.
Farmers’ markets are vital to Amanda and David Wadleigh, young farmers who own Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, Massachusetts. The eight summer markets and one winter market in and around Boston are “the main source of revenue” for the 176-acre farm, which has been in agricultural use since the 1700s, says David.
Selling at markets “removes the middleman out of the process,” he says, meaning more of the profit goes back to the farm. He started working at Kimball Farm 20 years ago at age 15. Several years ago, he and his wife completed negotiations to buy it from the previous owners, and they have continued to grow apples, stone fruits and various vegetables, using high tunnels and greenhouses to extend the New England growing season.
Beyond sales, David enjoys the ways that customers connect with each other at the markets. For example, recently one asked the vendor how to use green garlic and another customer chimed in that she used the leaves to make pesto. Sometimes chefs will be buying an abundance of vegetables, and other customers start conversations about how to use them. The sense of community is “really cool,” he says.
Stephen Violette of Dick’s Market Gardens in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, has been participating in farmers’ markets since at least the 1980s and says “direct marketing is the way to go.” From two or three in the ’80s, Dick’s now sells at 12 markets around the Boston area, and Violette thinks the connections and educating consumers about farming are key reasons markets are so valuable to farmers and the communities.
Cynthia Korman has been the market manager of the Ojai Certified Farmers Market, in California, since 1991, which has grown to 50 vendors and customers who come from as far away as Los Angeles, 80-plus miles to the south. Many “say it’s their favorite market,” she relates. Korman can count farmers who have been selling their strawberries, avocados, oranges and other produce at the market for more than 20 years and customers who have been loyal shoppers for that long as well. “It’s kind of a social market,” she says.
For her, market day is special because so many customers and vendors come by to thank her and embrace her. “It’s my hug day,” Korman says.
Clearly, passion for local markets runs deep in communities throughout the United States.
Advocates can support them through monetary, political and social engagement and specifically this year until July 31, via the America’s Farmers Market Celebration™ contest.
The event, which started in 2008, is the only annual ranking of the top U.S. farmers’ markets, chosen by public vote, and celebrates the farmers, staff and volunteers who make markets happen. This year, cash prizes total $15,000; the markets with the most votes nationally and in each state will receive an award. The funds are designed to go toward marketing, communications and other needs to expand the winning markets’ impact. Learn more and vote here.
