Truly Local

Bogus Farmers Are Taking a Toll on Farmers Markets

Sales at farmers markets in the United States, after soaring over the past couple of decades, have declined in recent years, according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times.

A new study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that revenue at farmers markets nationwide fell by 1 percent between 2007 and 2012, after having grown by a third in each of the two previous five-year time periods. The downturn in sales has been especially dramatic in the Los Angeles area, a region that, as the Times noted, was “historically on the leading edge of the farmers market movement.”

The Times used highly questionable data to quantify the decline in sales in Los Angeles County, preposterously equating a decline in direct sales by farmers in the county (of which there are very few amidst the urban sprawl) with sales at farmers markets, which draw farmers from throughout Southern California. But market managers and farmers confirmed the basic point, that the boom times for farmers markets are over.

The story in the Times blamed the decline in sales on the glut of farmers markets in the Los Angeles area. There are now more than 200, with even more on the way, since “every little borough, every little community wants” one, as one farmers market manager quoted in the story laments.

But it’s not just that there are too many farmers markets. Too many of them are farmers markets in name only, filled with produce that vendors loaded into their trucks that morning at wholesale markets and will peddle to unsuspecting consumers as if they had grown it themselves. Savvy consumers have sniffed out the fraud, are fed up with getting cheated, and are staying away from farmers markets.

As one reader who commented on the story in the Times put it, so-called farmers markets carry “way too much sketchy produce and items with no connection to farming.” Another commenter said most of the produce at farmers markets is “either bootlegged out of large corporate farms or bought at Von’s and re-sold.” A third commenter, who used to patronize farmers markets because they were one place where you could find organic produce from local farms, said most of the stuff sold at farmers markets these days is “prepackaged foods that for the most part are not any better than in the stores.”

For years here at Truly Local, I’ve been writing about the problem of bogus farmers peddling wholesale produce at ersatz farmers markets. I have been warning for years that it is a problem that imperils the whole farmers market movement – and the real farmers who depend on those outlets for their livelihood. Now, that dire prediction may be coming to pass.

Farmers Hurt by Peddling at L.A.-Area Markets

The proliferation of farmers markets has been great for consumers but not necessarily such a good deal for farmers. Increasing numbers of growers have been speaking out about the challenges and diminishing returns of selling produce at farmers markets. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, for instance, broached the subject of whether farmers markets are a “broken model” for supporting local farmers. David Karp, writing recently in the Los Angeles Times, reported on the growing frustrations among some long-time vendors at Los Angeles area farmers market. Karp cites a proliferation of peddlers as one of the problems that is forcing some truly local farmers out of famers markets.

Robert Knight Jr., who grows citrus fruit in the Redlands area and has sold at Los Angeles area farmers markets for years, is one such farmer who has dropped out. “He loves the original concept of certified farmers markets — farmers selling directly to consumers — but became discouraged by the increasing prevalence of large farms, employees who had little connection with their farms and peddlers who illicitly sold produce bought from other farms or wholesalers,” Karp reported.

‘Now when you go to a farmers market, it's almost like a mall experience, where you see the same vendors all over,’ Knight said. ‘The added value of being small and really local isn't as important as it used to be.’

Vigilant Manager is Key to New Market's Success

David Karp, who provides indepth coverage of farmers markets for the Los Angeles Times, recently profiled an unsung hero, the manager of one of the most successful new markets in Los Angeles, Diana Rodgers, who goes the extra mile, literally and figuratively, to assure that vendors at her market actually grew what they are selling. In five years, the market in the Mar Vista neighborhood, has grown from 15 to 70 vendors and has become a big hit with residents of the community. A vigilant manager like Rodgers is the key to such a market's success, assuring that the produce is fresh and truly local. But it's not an easy job, as Karp explains:

“Market integrity, always a concern for Rodgers, has become a priority since media reports last fall about vendors who sold produce they'd bought from the wholesale market rather than what they'd grown themselves. She evaluates farmers who apply to sell at her market by checking that they haven't been cited for peddling by agricultural authorities, by asking which other markets they sell at, by vetting them with other managers whose opinions she respects and by visiting the farms.

“Verifying integrity can be tricky. Brief farm visits like the ones she recently did are enough to catch blatant cheaters, Rodgers says, but won't nail those who grow a plausible amount for show and then buy the rest. The new mantra for integrity-conscious managers is "do the math": check records of farmers market sales against estimates of production on the farmer's certificate, issued by county agricultural inspectors.

“But the variables, such as crops, growing areas, seasons and sales to wholesale outlets are so complex that it's difficult for even a determined manager to catch cheaters, who have grown increasingly creative in exploiting the loopholes in market rules, Rodgers said.”

What's needed, in addition to tough managers, is more funding for state inspections, according to Rodgers, who favors a proposal in California for a modest increase in the fee that vendors at certified markets must pay, which would be used for market enforcement. Real farmers, in addition to consumers, would benefit greatly, but alas, according to Karp, the proposal apparently isn't likely to make it through the state legislature.

Fee Hike Proposed for Market Enforcement

A committee of the California Department of Food and Agriculture has recommended increasing a fee on farmers market vendors to fund tougher enforcement of rules against cheating. Farmers now pay a state fee of 60 cents for each day they set up shop at a certified farmers markets in California. Under the proposal, that fee would increase to $4, which would generate at extra $1.5 million a year in revenue. The proceeds would cover the costs of three additional market investigators, training for market managers and an improved database to handle consumer complaints.

An article in the Fresno Bee about the proposal noted that the number of citations issued by state inspectors for violations of farmers market regulations increased by 60 percent last year to 1,046, up from 635 in 2009. According to the Bee, “many of those cases were minor and were resolved on the spot.” But “at least six of the 2010 cases involved growers selling products that they did not grow themselves.”

In fact, that sort of cheating by peddlers, who buy wholesale produce and pass it off at farmers markets as their own, undoubtedly occurred far more often than that. That form of fraud in farmers markets is often shamelessly brazen, as a TV news investigative reporter discovered in Los Angeles last fall.

Honest farmers and market managers realize that these con artists pose a serious threat to farmers markets, and to their own livelihoods. Many such farmers would be happy to pay $4 more per day if it would help root out the imposters.

As Vonnie Cary, a citrus grower in Exeter, told the Bee, “Unfortunately, there are people who do not value the integrity of the farmers markets. And that can hurt all of us. Our customers are used to seeing us and they trust us. We have built up a relationship and we don’t want to ruin that.”

John Silveira, director of the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association, which operates 60 certified markets in the San Francisco Bay Area, added, “When someone chooses to break the law, it is a concern for farmers market operators, farmers and consumers. And it is a situation that needs to be looked at so we can maintain the trust of the general public.”

Then there is another contingent that seems to come out of the woodwork at every mention of a need to tighten up regulations at farmers markets – a brigade of paranoiacs convinced that such talk is yet another sign of the looming communist takeover of the United States. (See, for instance, this story from Kansas City, and this from Tomah, Wisconsin).

As a comment by “tcmps375” about the Fresno Bee story posted on the newspaper’s web site declared, “Just what we need – another bunch of fat cat proctologists and bureaucrats giving every grower an anal. Somebody has bought into Obama’s failed and doomed Marxist utopian philosophy.”

“You got that right!!!” proclaimed a farmers market vendor called “boisefarmer,” who added, “I don’t need jack booted thugs running around on my private property.” He went on to insist that government regulations “won’t stop cheating” and will merely “give customers a false sense of security.” His proposed solution to that gloomy situation: “farmers market shoppers “should make their own decisions and not rely on someone else.”

What tcmps375 and boisefarmer don’t get is that the best farmers markets are booming because they are well regulated, which assures that consumers get what they expect: food grown by those who are selling it, delivered direct to the market. Any farmer who wants to hop on the bandwagon should be willing to pay for the regulatory system that supports certified markets. Farmers who don’t want to be regulated can set up an uncertified market anywhere they want and sell anything they can fool customers into paying for.

Scam Buster Finds Easy Marks at L.A. Farmers Markets

Joel Grover, a TV news scam buster for NBC Los Angeles, who is famous for catching car-repair swindles and filthy restaurant kitchens on camera, recently unleashed his camera team on the city’s vast and cherished network of 300 farmers markets. He discovered something that would not have come as a shock to readers of this blog -- “some farmers at these markets are making false claims and flat-out lies about the produce they’re selling.”

Grover reported that his team found prevaricating vendors at more than two dozen farmers markets in the Los Angeles area. It didn’t take much digging to expose some of the brazen and shameless lies he heard.

NBCLA’s undercover cameras caught trucks connected with Frutos Farms loading up with produce at wholesale produce warehouses in downtown L.A. before heading out to farmers markets. They found Juan Uriostegui selling broccoli that he said he had harvested on his farm in Redlands -- from a field that Grover found to be bone-dry and filled with weeds. And they discovered that strawberries sold by Mary Ellen Martinez at the Torrance Farmers Market, which she claimed were pesticide-free, in fact had high levels of four different pesticides.

Here’s a written summary of Grover’s broadcast: “False Claims, Lies Caught on Tape at Farmers Markets.”

Bravo to Grover. Rooting out scam artists like those he found -- and embarrassing the so-called farmers markets that harbor them -- is one way to help bring an end to the problem.

Reporters for the Sunday Times of London conducted a similar investigation with similar results in 2007. Local news teams everywhere should get in on the fun.

Beyond Farmers Markets

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.

California Advisory Committee Seeks Nominees

California has the most well developed body of laws and regulations covering farmers markets. The Certified Farmers’ Market Advisory Committee, which is charged with keeping tabs on how the laws are working and whether more enforcement mechanisms are needed, has a number of vacancies that the secretary of the state Department of Food and Agriculture is now seeking to fill. It's an unpaid job but vitally important to the effort to keep California's thriving farmers markets honest. Any takers?

Big Business Comes to Santa Monica Market

An increasing percentage of the produce sold at the thriving farmers market in Santa Monica, Calif., winds up at high-end restaurants and gourmet grocery stores scattered all over the country, reports Russ Parsons in the Los Angeles Times. That’s because wholesale produce companies have become major buyers at the market, held each Wednesday and Saturday, where I have been a regular for years and years.

That is not exactly what farmers markets are supposed to be for.  They are supposed to be venues for sales directly to consumers. But farmers markets are also supposed to help generate business for local farms, and if possible, revive entire local food economies. And if the market in Santa Monica is doing just that by helping its farmers hook up with some big customers, who can complain about that?

Well, chefs can complain. Many of the leading chefs in Los Angeles have been major local supporters of the city’s farmers markets, particularly the well managed one in Santa Monica, for years. Now, they often have to watch as wholesale guys cart off cases full of the best stuff. A number of chefs expressed their concerns to Parsons for his story, “A Food Fight Over the Cream of the Crop.”

“Though no hard figures are kept, some growers say that as much as half of what they sell at the market is bought by produce companies. As a result, what had long been a kind of informal meeting place for many of Southern California's foodies and chefs is no longer quite so clubby. What chefs once regarded as a combination of culinary laboratory and kaffeeklatsch -- a place to find new ingredients and ideas and swap gossip, sometimes seemingly in equal proportions -- is more and more a place for big business.”

Santa Monica market manager Laura Avery, who has run the operation since 1982, just a year after it opened, is caught in the middle of the conflict. She is considering some innovative solutions. She told Parsons that one idea under consideration is to create a separate market for wholesalers, either at a different location or earlier in the morning at the site of the regular farmers market.

“There is certainly a wide range of opinions among farmers, among chefs and among the produce companies,” she said. “They're all trying to get more small-farm produce into restaurants, which is great. But we want to be sure to keep stuff on the tables for regular customers and smaller restaurants who come every week… Certainly, we're victims of too much good stuff, of too many happy customers. But I think we can make it work.”

Carbon-Footprint Hype Debunked

Here's a recent piece from the New York Times reporting on a study that punctures some of the overblown claims often bandied about these days about how eating locally grown food reduces greenhouse gas emissions. That may be true in some cases, but not always, according to researchers at the University of California in Davis. Too many other factors affect how energy efficient any particular consumer's food shopping practices are. The article concludes:

"Certainly, there are many reasons for eating local food — from supporting local farmers to a desire for fresher, potentially tastier food. The research in California, however, offers the prospect of a more nuanced debate on eating a low-carbon diet. In the meantime, [Gail] Feenstra, [a food system analyst at the university] said, the research has already led her to one conclusion: Don’t drive your sport utility vehicle to the farmers’ market, buy one food item and drive home again. Even if you are using reusable bags."

Limits Put on Market That Strayed From Mission

The "farmers market" in the Old Town section of Temecula, Calif., got a new, five-year lease on life. The city council on a 4-0 vote gave the managers of the sprawling market, Gale and George Cunningham,  the right to continue using city property for the weekly Saturday markets, ending a brouhaha that had simmered for months. Merchants in the neighborhood had complained that while it was billed as an outlet for local farm produce, the market had mutated into a sprawling, anything-goes street bazaar that was unfairly competing with them.

The city sought to address the concerns of local merchants by imposing limits on the market designed to turn it back into what it was meant to be, as the North County Times reported on Nov. 7.  The farmers will be certified, and nonagricultural and nonfood vendors will be allowed to sell only handcrafted items, health care products, and other items related to the theme of the farmers market. That leaves the door open to all sorts of merchandise, but to make sure it doesn't get out of hand, the new deal with the city requires the Cunninghams to submit a quarterly list of vendors and a detailed list of the items they sell to the city for review and approval.

The market could have spared itself a lot of grief if it hadn't strayed so far from its mission in the first place, said Phil Strickland, writing in the Nov. 12 North County Times.

Let's acknowledge that it is no longer a farmers market in the best sense of the words. If it was, the contract probably would have been approved with nary a word, save for the yea votes. But, because of apparent lax management and a lack of city enforcement, the farmers market has violated the rule regarding the nature of what can be sold. [The new rules are] good, but of little consequence if the city doesn't keep a close, in-person eye on the vendors, at least for now.

Indeed, the Cunningham's attorney, Alicen Wong, already seems to be angling to widen a loophole for vendors peddling various and sundry stuff. Before the ink on the deal was even dry, she had asked the city to possibly broaden the list of approved merchants that could be categorized as "guest vendors" to sell their goods two Saturdays per year, according to the North County Times.