Saving the Local Farmer’s Market

\”Are YOU Ready?\”

That title, it seems pretentious even to me. Who am I? I’m not a farmer, I’m not a vegetable seller, at least I wasn’t until this past Saturday.  Am I really qualified to try to save it? But if not me, then who? Why do I even care? Why can’t I just go down to the “big” market at the sizable town South of us?

Some of those questions are from my own mind, some are from neighbors who have heard my lament on the town’s only market slowly dying.  And when I tell you that the only farmers market is dying, I mean that in a literal way, sellers are dying of old age and not being replaced by new sellers.  3 years ago there were a half a dozen regular sellers. Last year there was 3. This past weekend, I was one of two.  TWO! On opening weekend, and a holiday weekend. I was glad I pushed forward with my plans to sell this year. Even if I do feel like an imposter, even if I do feel like my efforts are not worthy of selling. By being there I doubled the presence of the market.

I were there with one of our favorite sellers, we’ll call her Su.  She’s originally from Korea, married an American soldier and came home with him to NW Iowa and raised a couple of daughters. She knows her vegetables, and she’s a long time seller. I have latched onto her as my mentor for this first year, and she’s been wonderfully supportive. She’s excited by some of the crops I had available this spring. Apparently garlic scapes are a favorite in Korea, and she was never able to explain to American growers what she was looking for. She was so excited to see my beautiful scapes, she told me all the meals she used to make in Korea with it, and since the markets were cancelled for that week, (scapes don’t keep well, and they all come at once, it’s a one week glut) I gave her about half of our beloved scape crop. It came up again this Saturday, we had time for a couple of long conversations and she was insistent that I consult with her when I go to make my garlic order this year because she wants a lot. Then she grilled me on how I grow them and how I harvest them, both of which are a bit different than what she remembers from Korea, but with the geographic, cultural and weather differences, that doesn’t surprise me.

Su thought my vegetable offerings were up to snuff. She even convinced me to up my price on a couple of them. I had some basic little plastic bags, and everything was washed and sorted into them, which is not my preferred method of keeping vegetables, but I was trying to make them approachable for customers who are used to plastic wrapped vegetables.

I had to got to take my 2 young boys with me, as their dad was working out of town all weekend, with the car. So instead of my grand plan for a pop-up shelter, table and signs, we made do with what we could haul in the wagon. I tossed the baby in a sling on my back, the 4 year old “helped” with the wagon, and we walked the mile or so to the market. Sadly, the smaller amount of produce I could fit in the wagon wasn’t an issue, from 8-11 we only had a half dozen customers stop to see us. Most of those were looking for produce that isn’t even available yet, (tomatoes and peppers and potatoes.) Some of those who did stop, did so apparently for social reasons, as they didn’t buy any vegetables, but we got to hear all of their excuses for why they weren’t buying vegetables that day. Ooooh the excuses….

To wrap this post up, I have come away from my first market stall with fresh insight into just how bad the state of our market really is. Not only do we have a dearth of sellers, but customers have noticed, and stopped coming. The customers that do come, don’t eat a lot of vegetables, and only want specific, familiar ones like green beans, tomatoes and potatoes. (For those that are curious, I did make one sale, one of the lettuce heads. )

I would much rather have a vibrant farmers market, one that can provide extra income to more than 2 sellers, one that could cushion the blow if anything ever happened to our food-on-wheels national distribution system. So I’m fighting for the remnants of what we have. Why does it feel like such an up hill battle? It’s food! Anyone else on the front lines of this? Any suggestions?

- Calamity Jane