Fancy New Market Facility Riles Some Farmers

You might think that if a small town spent $600,000 to build a large, fancy, timber-framed structure called Festhalle to house a farmers market, local market farmers would be delighted. That's not the case with some of the farmers who have been selling for decades at a farmers market in Cullman County, Alabama, according to a lengthy report in the Cullman Times. The new facility has let in larger farms than have traditionally served the 30-year old Cullman County Farmers Market, and that's a problem for some of the smaller producers, who fear they're about to be muscled out of town by the new venue.

Both markets claim that all of their vendors sell only what they grow. But large, costly farmers market structures seem to have a tendency to fill up with peddlers who are reselling wholesale produce, as has occurred in North Carolina and Arkansas, to cite two examples. Organizers of the old market in Cullman County seem to have their suspicions that peddlers are slipping in the door at Festhalle. As the Cullman Times reported:

“Both markets require vendors to grow and sell their own produce and each markets’ rules specify vendors must have obtained a valid growers’ permit from the county extension office, which is available free of charge and validates the vendor to be an original producer. The permit also gives sales-tax exemption to farmers. Festhalle market manager Jimmy Simms said growers from other counties are permitted to sell at the city’s market and are not charged additional fees for being from outside Cullman. However, CCFM President Dalford Tucker said the CCFM is intended for Cullman County farmers and ones who are loyal to CCFM.

“Tucker also said CCFM was created for small growers and excludes some of the bigger farms which buy produce and sell it in addition to what they grow. 'This market here is for people that grown their own produce,’ he said. 'We don’t want any big farmers. I consider a big farmer someone that has 30 acres and hires people to pick and sell their produce’.”