Russ Parsons, food editor of the Los Angeles Times, and author of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table, spoke at the California Small Farm Conference this spring about how the proliferation of farmers markets has vastly improved the quality of produce available to consumers. But in his speech, reprinted in the Times, he also discussed the inefficiencies of the farmers market model.
Consumers have to make it the market during the fleeting period of time when they’re open each week – and find nearby street parking – or else they’re out of luck. For farmers, “there’s the not inconsiderable matter of having to drive hundreds of miles every day to spend hours standing outside, weighing lettuce and making change.” Because of the limitations, farmers markets, despite all the attention they receive, account for less than 2 percent of fruit and vegetable sales in the United States.
“So how can they move beyond that?” Parsons wonders. He offers a number of ideas, including getting produce from local market farmers into supermarkets, some of which are “bending corporate rules to allow individual farmers to deliver directly to stores rather than to central warehouses or middlemen.”
Another idea coming into vogue in towns and cities around the nation is to house farmers markets in permanent structures. Some such “farmers markets” turn into tourist traps peddling wholesale produce, as we have seen in Arkansas and North Carolina, among other places. But successful examples in California, says Parsons, include the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the Oxbow Market in Napa. They are “essentially high-end food markets selling everything from coffee to culinary antiques, but they also offer space for farmers to bring in their produce on a daily or weekly basis.”
A third example: community supported agriculture programs that enable small farmers to sell directly to subscription customers.
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