The long-beleaguered Dallas Farmers Market, a venue that in the past has been cluttered with furniture and other stuff that has nothing to do with a farm, as well as lots of supermarket-type produce, is still trying to get it right.
It has tried to carve out space for local farmers to sell produce that they grew themselves but it also allows, as the market’s Web site acknowledges, other vendors to “complement these local offerings, with everything from Mexican avocados to Washington apples.” As other markets that have tried to mix locally-grown, direct-marketed produce with resold wholesale fruits and vegetables under one roof (for instance, in North Carolina and Arkansas) have learned, it’s hard to make that work. The truly local producers often have a hard time competing with mass produced fruits and vegetables, quit trying, and the quality of the entire market suffers.
Now, Robert Bagwall, creator of West Village, an upscale “urban village,” in downtown Dallas not far from the market, has come up with a shocking idea to improve the place. Make the farmers market a venue for local farmers, not an outlet for trinkets and food items from who-knows-where.
According to a story in the Dallas Morning News, “One of his suggestions is a radical rethinking of the whole downtown market, focusing on regional produce from regional growers, not vegetables imported from California. Everything sold at Farmers Market should be authentically local, organic whenever possible and rescued from the hodgepodge that currently clutters stalls, Bagwell says.”
A commentator seconded the wild-eyed notion: “I agree with Bagwell. Get rid of the sellers who buy off the docks and lower the rent to local farmers and producers,” wrote jtt1955.
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