Where is the produce?

We get it. You get everyone loaded up in the car to head to the local farmers market. Today is the day that you will fill your bags full of fresh local produce, eggs, and meat and ditch the grocery store. You can’t wait to taste those fresh tomatoes you plan to get. You pull up and get your reusable bags out, you even brought a cooler. You start walking through the market..and all you see are plants, baked goods, crafts…oh finally-some farm fresh eggs and meat. But where is all the produce? Maybe you saw some kale and radishes, but where are those tomatoes and squash? Why doesn’t it look like the produce section of a grocery store with farmers dressed in straw hats and overalls manning tables laden with fruits and veggies? You chose to do the right thing and shop local, but this “farmers market” is not making that possible! How absolutely frustrating!! What do you do? Go to the grocery store where you will buy tomatoes, squash, peppers, and cucumbers from Mexico? Oranges, plums and peaches from Chile? Bananas from Central or South America.? Most of the produce you would get at the store in late March and early April is not even from the US. Which is why you started your day at the local farmers market to begin with!

What is wrong with that farmers market?

Which brings us to the farmers market conundrum.

Farmers grow produce. No matter where they are in the world, all produce is grown by farmers. This is an indisputable fact. However, our food system is whacked. We can now get “fresh” produce whenever we want, even if it isn’t in season where we live. All thanks to globalization. Because of this, people are disconnected with growing seasons and think those Mexican tomatoes are fresh and have forgotten what fresh actually tasted like. But when you want a nice garden salad in January, you can get tomatoes at the store, but not from the farmers market. So a trend started in many farmers markets. To keep people shopping at the market, the farmer devised a plan that would allow them to bring out of season produce to the market and not lose customers to the grocery store. The plan is simple, buy produce from a wholesaler just like the grocery store does. It worked and allowed the farmer to make sales even during seasons when there wasn’t much produce. The problem is, reselling produce is much easier than growing it and probably more profitable. So then full time resellers became a thing at farmers markets. Problem was, it hurt the local farmers. Local farmers couldn’t compete with the resellers. Resellers could spend all day selling their produce where a farmer needed to be on the farm and may only need a space a couple times a week. Resellers were able to offer a variety that a local farmers couldn’t compete with. Because the idea of a farmers market implies that you are buying directly from a farmer that grew the product, customers didn’t think there was a need to know the difference between the reseller and the local farmer. They assumed what they were getting was local and grown by the person who was selling it to them. Which sadly, wasn’t always true.

So the local farmers got tired of fighting and moved on to other places.

This is why farmers markets across the US have started taking a “LOCAL ONLY” stance when it comes to selling at the market. Many farmers markets don’t allow reselling of produce and have boundaries around what they consider local for their market. For instance, Palestine Farmers market guidelines in 2023 state that all items must be grown and harvested within 100 miles of the market. This is to encourage the local farmers to come back because we all know local really does taste better. However, it takes time to inspire people to grow food. A worldwide pandemic helps, but it still takes time to find land and get growing. So in the meantime, we create community. At the Palestine Farmers Market our mission is pretty simple: build a community where people looking for local food can find it and people selling local food can find customers. To do that, we fill tables in our beautiful pavilion. We prioritize farmers and local food producers and round it all out by accepting artisan items on a limited basis. When produce is slow, sometimes we seem to have more crafters and artisans, but at the end of the day we are always a farmers market. By creating a community we have even inspired so of our artisans to grow extra to bring to market and inspired members of the community to form community gardens and to get growing and sourcing more local foods. We are reviving farmers markets across the country through community. Our world is a different one than it is was 50 years ago. Farmers are recognizing the need to return to older methods of regenerative principles of farming because modern farming is killing the land. Farmers and farmers markets are changing. Local produce is seasonal. Our farmers market is returning back to is roots by making sure local farmers are supported and have a place to sell that is NOT full of resellers, but other local farmers like themselves. We love partnering with the farmers to help educate people about what is growing and what is in season and can be found at the market and how to eat that. We dream of one day having a market where all 36 tables under our pavilion are teeming with produce, eggs, meat and other farm and locally produced foods. We are always a work in progress and we passionately support our local farmers in their endeavors. It will just take a little time and patience, which is the ultimate lesson given to us by the farmer.