First, they’ll crack down on fraud at farmers markets. The next thing you know, they’ll outlaw Christmas and bring in U.N. troops to grab your guns. That is how some Americans, who have probably spent a little too much time watching Fox News, have responded when intrepid farmers market managers around the country have issued new rules aimed at preventing fake farmers from peddling wholesale produce trucked in from afar, and selling it to shoppers as if they grew it themselves on a nearby farm.
It happened in Kansas City where a crackdown on fraud at a farmers market was greeted with invective-laced comments in a local paper about how “scummy” government “rats” were trying to “control everything.” In Alexandria, Virginia, a critic of rules intended to assure that consumers were getting the local produce they flock to farmers markets to buy declared, “I hate what America has become.” In Wisconsin, a farmer who was tired of being undersold by peddlers and wanted to ban imported produce from a local farmers market was assailed as a “dictator” trying “to tell you what to grow, what to charge, where you can sell it.” In California, supporters of a proposed fee to pay for enforcement of rules against reselling were accused of having “bought into Obama's failed and doomed Marxist utopian philosophy.”
The same thing is happening yet again right now in Nashville, Tennessee. As I recently noted, quoting the Nashville Tennessean, a new manager, Tasha Kennard, has attempted to make the Nashville Farmers Market more welcoming to actual local farmers by reining in vendors who resell produce. To hear some critics tell it, that rule change is part and parcel of a nationwide war on white Christians.
The new policy in Nashville has just kicked in. Its supporters concede that it will take local farmers a while to respond. It will also take a while for consumers to learn that if they really want truly local produce, they’ll have to do without certain things at certain times of year. Those changes haven’t happened yet. The result in early spring of this year has been lots of empty spaces at the market, which used to be filled with resellers. Some local shoppers who showed up at the farmers market in early April were peeved to discover that they couldn’t load up on “local” tomatoes, corn and watermelon, as they thought they used to be able to do before Kennard waltzed in and ruined everything. They, along with some of the resellers who got kicked out, let their anger rip in the comments attached to the most recent article in the Tennessean about the controversy.
Leading the charge in the comments section was someone who signed on as Timothy Whitby. He said he was a vendor and customer at the market for 15 years, who apparently got booted because he didn’t grow what he sold. “Nashville suffers while TASHA KENNARD strokes her ego…FIRE HER AND ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS INCOMPETENCE,” he said in one comment. “SHE'S A LYING POS... She needs to be fired.. she's a business KILLER. Just a stupid fool,” he said in another comment.
In a third comment, he asserted that a restaurateur who is apparently black was allowed to jump ahead of others who had been patiently waiting “for years” for a spot in the market. “This place is political, racist and running a SCAM on NASHVILLE,” Whitby alleged. In a fourth comment, he attacked a “MUSLIMS STORE” in the market that he said bought and resold everything, with a hefty markup, yet still had its place in the market.
In yet another comment, Whitby acknowledged, “I grow my own but often need things I have no time or room to plant.” So he “often” resold wholesale produce because he didn’t have “time or room” to grow it himself?! Dude, you’re not a farmer and shouldn’t expect to get a free ride on the farmers market bandwagon. Bravo to Kennard for kicking you out. Whitby was holding out hope that he might one day get back into the Nashville Farmers Market. “When the midgets liar is gone I'll go back down there,” he said, referring to Kennard. “Of course she may put a ban on white American Christians next,” he added.
Other commenters who criticized the new rules were blissfully ignorant of farmers market dynamics. One, who posted under the name Kevin Eldridge, asserted that he wants to have more local farmers in the market, but insisted that at times of the year when those “farmers” can’t grow anything, they “need to have it imported due to it not being available locally.” He proceeded to assert that the new rules “will mean the ultimate end of the farmers market [due] to lack of local farmers.” Actually, the biggest threat to local farmers is the invasion of farmers markets by resellers hawking industrially produced fruit and vegetables trucked in from California, Arizona or Mexico. Real local farmers can’t compete with them.
Another commenter, who called himself “Ron Slimmin Hall,” asserted that the new management “clearly has no idea about farming seasons, products, supply, and demand. They deserve to close and lose money if this is how they govern the Farmers Market in Nashville. Nashville is so backwards anyway, it doesn't surprise me. Country people.” That’s an odd thing to say. Most supermarkets these days, even Walmart, buy local produce when they can get it in season but truck it in from afar the rest of the year. Real “farmers markets” are supposed to be different than that. To date, many Nashville shoppers, including Hall himself, have apparently been too “backwards” to get that...and still are, as Kennard is learning.
Last time I checked, the Tennessean’s most recent article on the controversy had attracted more than 50 comments. Most were scathing in their criticism of Kennard and the new policies she has promulgated. But there were a few who understand what a “farmers market” is supposed to be about.
“Tammy Reeves” wrote: “Farmer Markets should be for farmers with locally grown produce. The stalls will fill as gardens begin producing.”
“Steve Willcox” said, “I like the stand being taken as the public were being sold produce under the guise of it being fresh and locally grown.”
“Jesse Qualls” added, “I personally appreciate and, Applaud the Boards, Decision for allowing the Real farmers to be able to sell their products.”
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