The Carlisle Central Farmers Market, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is on the verge of imploding less than two years after it began. The cause: a possibly irreconcilable conflict between farmers and non-farmers.
According to a report about the market’s demise by Joseph Cress in the Sentinel Reporter, the non-farmers think farmers have way too much clout. But farmers complain that the venue is mostly a farmers market in name only, which is more concerned with redeveloping downtown Carlisle than providing an outlet where local farmers can sell locally produced food.
The evidence suggests that the disgruntled farmers have more cause for complaint. To begin with, there are no farmers on the market’s board of directors. Board President David Sheridan, oddly enough, seems to think that would be a conflict of interest.
However, as Sandra Kay Miller, who owns Painted Hand Farm in Newburg, explained, input from farmers could have averted some boneheaded management decisions, starting with the plan to keep the market open on two back-to-back days each week, Friday and Saturday. “That’s fine for people who don’t have farms. But I have 150 animals I need to take care of,” said Miller, who recently withdrew from the market in frustration.
Miller said the farmers proposed having a market on Tuesday or Wednesday as well as on Saturday, to better accommodate mid-week shoppers and the agricultural production cycle. But they were ignored. Farmers also suggested scaling back the market to Saturdays during the slow winter months, Miller said. That proposal likewise was ignored.
Several non-farmer vendors at the market told Cress they couldn’t understand what the farmers are grumbling about. Ted Loy, owner of Ted’s Oven Ready Foods, for one, insisted that there has been too much emphasis on local growers at the market. In another recent article in the Sentinel Reporter, Melissa Colucci, agreed. Colucci, who resells “hand-made jewelry” at a stall in the market, blamed the board for pushing a “personal agenda” that favors organic, grass-fed meat but bars resellers. “They were warned by multiple people that they were going in the wrong direction, and they completely ignored it,” she said, apparently meaning that the board should let the market turn into a free-for-all flea market.
Sheridan insists there is room in the market for both local growers and resellers. Local growers alone couldn’t cover the rent for 7,800-square-foot indoor facility occupied by the market, he says. The association’s Web site, however, clearly seeks to hitch the venue’s wagon to the local food fad that is sweeping the nation, and offers no hint that any reselling is allowed. As the market’s “mission statement” declares, the venue will be a “destination to showcase our region’s bounty…and to provide entrepreneurial opportunities for those who produce and sell local products.”
That would suit Miller fine, if only the mission statement were truly put into effect. “The bottom line is, without the farmers, it’s not a farmers market,” she said. “That’s what it says over the door. People go there to buy food.”
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