Truly Local

Found! Good Farmers Markets in Florida

Art Friedrich, who I quoted in my last post about Florida farmers markets, politely set me straight on several points. Here is his informative and thoughtful response:

"Don't assume that because there are no growers-only markets in FL, that there are no good farmers to visit at Miami markets. I want to give kudos to all the local farmers who are to be found at different markets, in addition to the three I mentioned. Some have been around for over a decade and some new: Bee Heaven Farm, Paradise Farm, LNB Groves, Farmer Fred, Treehugger Farm, the PATCH Garden in Broward, Glaser Organic Farm. They can be found at various markets, including PinecrestGardens, SW Community Farmers Market at Tropical Park, The Adrienne Arscht Center Market, Coconut Grove Farmers Market and others.

"While market operators and the resellers that many of them have welcomed are a big part of the problem, the root of the problem is also to be found in the speculative nature of Miami real estate and the suburban sprawl that has been eating up agricultural land for decades. While this happens everywhere, we have a much more bounded area to work with, so we feel the economic pressure much more intensely.  Most farms are very small, under 5 acres, undercapitalized, and we haven't had the benefit of available land supporting new farmers in other areas. Most farms produce just a few items in quantity enough to sell, so it doesn't make sense for them to sit for hours and travel for 2 hours to be at a market personally. We make that connection and have a strong connection with all of the farms we work with locally.

"I think, personally, I try to focus on the folks that are trying to make positive change and move the norms to the grower-direct experience that we desire.  If you want to talk about all of FL, I can connect you with Carmen of Florida Organic Growers, who knows many markets statewide. She runs the EBT doubling program for the state, which is only for FL grown fruits and veggies at markets. Some or most of them are producer only.  I think there a lot more to say about FL markets that is positive. I appreciate your efforts to call out the problem of resellers at our markets, but we are a unique place with unique needs and possibilities.

"I've been telling people here for years that even if you go to what seems to be a farmers market, you still have to ask where things are coming from. The great thing is that at a market, you do get that opportunity and should be encouraged to do just that!  Build a relationship with the folks you can trust at the market and learn the origin and seasonality of our produce! It's fun and rewarding."

Thanks, Art. Here, by the way, is a list of farmers markets and local farmers in the Miami area that was published last August in the Miami Herald. It lists all the markets that Art mentions: Farm Fresh: a Guide to South Florida Farmers Market.  And here is a very cool map of organic farms and farmers markets on the Florida Organic Growers’ web site.

Still Looking for a Real Farmers Market in Florida

I’ll be making a quick visit to south Florida next week, and as I am wont to do in my travels, I would like to visit a good farmers markets – you know, a place where local farmers sell what they grew and recently harvested.

Alas, my recent search was fruitless, confirming the scornful thoughts I've previously posted about Florida. (See “Do All Florida Farmers Markets Stink?” and “Grown in Peru for a Florida Farmers Market.”) There are lots of venues that call themselves farmers markets in the Sunshine State – and many that loudly tout the allegedly fresh-picked local character of the produce on sale. But there are few, if any, that are the real deal.

Art Friedrich, who moved to Miami six years ago, is trying to launch a local food movement. Such a thing was “nonexistent” in south Florida when he arrived, he said in an email. That was apparent from the “total lack of … local produce at any market. Things have progressed a bit since then, but it's a long way from the rest of the country.”

Friedrich helped found an organization called Urban Oasis Project, which aims to spark an appreciation for locally grown vegetables. The nonprofit runs Verde Farm, a 22-acre organic vegetable garden adjacent to a townhouse complex where 145 formerly homeless families live. Some of the residents work on the farm. The produce is sold at a seasonal market on site and at the Upper Eastside Farmers Market in Miami, which Friedrich manages. That market, on Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., in Legion Park at 6599 Biscayne Blvd., is probably the “closest thing” to a real farmers market in the region, he said. But he acknowledged that it is a far cry from the genuine, grower-only farmers markets that are thriving in other parts of the country.

“There’s really only three vendors selling produce out of the 30 booths, but we represent the best. Little River Market Cooperative runs a CSA and sells veggies, seeds and plants. Nature Boyz makes guarapo juice and sells tropical fruits, many of which he grows himself. Urban Oasis Project sells our produce from Verde Farm, as well as produce from numerous other farms. We are generally all local during the season (Nov-April), but I do run the market year round and in the summer we only really have fruit, so I get Veggies mainly from up the East Coast through a distributor. I just label the origins of everything and keep it transparent.”

Friedrich said other members of his family have farms in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He’s very familiar with the farmers market scene in that part of the country. “It’s a different world down here,” he said.

My search for a farmers market to visit in south Florida next week led me to a story about another market that doesn't seem to be as up front about where the produce on sale comes from. It is in the town of Golden Gate, on the Gulf Coast. The Golden Gate Farmers Market was in the news in January when the Collier County Commissioners voted 3-2 to shut it down.

The ostensible reason was the market’s habit of posting signs on nearby roadways that violated county rules. But before the vote, one commissioner called vendors at the market “gypsies.” Market supporters jumped on that. They complained the remark revealed that the decision was “racist and ignorant” and that the commission’s main peeve with the market is that a majority of the vendors are Hispanic. Amidst the ensuing hue and cry, the commission reversed its decision.

Maybe the decision was racist. Maybe the market, which seems to be popular and well attended, is a great benefit to the community and a boon to the hard-working vendors who sell stuff there. But my peeve is that it pretends to be a farmers market when it clearly is not.

Like so many bogus “farmers markets” around the country, the one in Golden Gate is swathed in local-food sales rhetoric, leaving the clear impression that the produce you can get there was picked hours earlier somewhere nearby by those who are selling it. The market goes so far as to prominently post on its Facebook page Wikipedia's definition of a farmers market as a place “featuring foods sold directly by farmers to consumers.”

I pointed out in a comment that I posted on the Facebook page that the fruit and vegetable vendors shown in the photographs, with tables groaning under the weight of produce ranging from peppers and tomatoes to sugarcane, bananas and pineapples, obviously hadn’t grown it all on their own farms.
The market management replied by posting photos of five market stalls -– two selling prepared foods “made on her own stove” and "in her own oven,” one selling potted plants “grown in his own backyard,” a fourth selling honey “made by his own bees,” and one other selling hair bows “made by her own hands.” Not a one of those five vendors at the "farmers market" had a single fruit or vegetable for sale.

The market’s management posted one other message on the Facebook page that is responsive to my complaint. “There are flea market items in every farmers market in the county.” Fair enough. Then call them flea markets.

Do All Florida Farmers Markets Stink?

That’s a question posed in a comment on Chowhound in 2006 that has drawn 187 responses to date. The answer from most who have weighed in is a resounding “yes!”

It seems there are far more sno-cones, T-shirts and sunglasses on sale at “farmers markets” in Florida than fruits and vegetables. And the produce offered for sale at most so-called farmers markets in the state is plastic-wrapped, supermarket stuff, often sold right “out of boxes that pretty obviously were bought wholesale that morning,” the comments assert. Some “farmers markets” in the state, like the one in Jacksonville mentioned recently here at Truly Local, make no bones about the fact that they offer produce from as far away as Canada and Peru. Many of the reports on the Chowhound thread about visits to markets in the state pronounced them “shameful,” “pathetic” and a “terrible disappointment.”

There are exceptions, by some accounts. One commentator, for example, recommended the Audubon Park Community Market, which is open every Monday night from 5 to 10 p.m. in Orlando, as a place where only vendors who grew it themselves are allowed to sell produce.

To be sure, the market’s rules include a few loopholes that would allow vendors to resell produce they didn’t grow. The rules also declare that the market “will not be bound to apply a particular set of selection criteria in every instance” and reserves “unconditional discretion to accept or refuse anyone as a market vendor.” However, the rules also state that priority will be give to “regional farmers and producers who bring products that are 100 percent grown, harvested, produced or caught within 150 miles of Orlando.” Also, no vendor can resell products without prior approval of the market director, and if approval is granted, “any farm item or product not produced by the vendor must have labeling designating the farm/original source.” To help assure that these rules are followed, all farmers who sell at the market are subject to annual inspection, with advance notice, and can also be inspected if there are complaints about the origin of the fruits and vegetables they are selling.

Another poster on Chowhound held up the West Palm Beach Greenmarket as a truly local farmers market. It is a Saturday morning market that appears to be open in the winter only, from mid-October through mid-April.

Indeed, the rules posted on the market’s web site seem well designed to assure the market’s integrity. The market has two slots for vendors reselling Florida produce, a loophole presumably designed to let in a few, select specialty items that aren’t produced nearby. But those vendors are far outnumbered by local farmers. The market’s rules allow space for up to 40 vendors selling fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, or herbs that they have grown themselves. These “farmer/growers,” as defined in the rules, “must own, rent, lease or sharecrop the land AND practice the agricultural arts, i.e., s/he must grow from seeds, transplants, or cuttings” and “must be responsible for all production operations.”

Are there other truly local farmers markets in Florida?

Grown in Peru for a Florida ‘Farmers Market’

The managers of a bustling, 75-year-old “farmers market” in Jacksonville, Florida, pay lip service to supporting local farms. But the venue’s business practices help explain why there aren’t nearly as many real farmers nearby as there once were. The market has no restrictions on what can be sold, which means that any local farmers who want to sell freshly picked, local produce at the market have to compete with the cheapest fruits and vegetables that can be found anywhere on earth. No wonder many have given up.

“In the old days, when there was more of an agricultural center right around Jacksonville,” there were packing houses nearby, supplied with produce carried in on horse-drawn wagons from nearby farmers, said Jeff Edwards, chief financial officer of Beaver Street Fisheries Inc., which owns the venue, called the Jacksonville Farmers Market. But not any longer.

“We focus mainly on local and regional product,” Edwards insists, in an interview about the business with the Jacksonville Financial News & Daily Record. But he, and the market’s general manager, Greg Tison, go on to offer a litany of excuses for why they can’t adhere very faithfully to that goal.

“We don’t have the right climate to grow everything around here, so vendors have to supplement it with product from other places,” says Edwards. “Our culture and our society today have gotten to a point where we want certain products all year long. With that, we have to go abroad,” Tison adds.

How far afield do the market’s buyer’s go for product to sell, the interviewer wondered. “The geographic area would be Florida and Georgia. Some of it reaches up into the Carolinas. Depending on the season, we may have product coming in from as far north as Michigan. We have some syrup that comes in from Canada, and blueberries sometimes come in from Canada. It depends on the season, and what’s available. Another popular item right now is onions. Some of the onions are coming from Mexico and Peru,” Tison replies.

To the company’s credit, the Jacksonville Farmers Market’s web site is largely devoid of the come-ons trumpeting “freshly-harvested, locally grown” produce that deceitfully adorn the web sites of many other so-called farmers markets where actual farmers selling their own produce are few and far between. The home page clearly discloses that the market includes “imported items.”

Edwards and Tison are also correct to put some of the onus on consumers for demanding out-of-season produce shipped in from thousands of miles away. But supermarkets amply meet that demand. “Farmers markets” should be, as their name clearly implies, markets for actual farmers.

As has been seen in recent years in hundreds of communities throughout the United States and elsewhere, farmers markets that are strictly regulated to exclude resold produce can spur a renaissance on local farms. With a market where they can connect with consumers eager to support local agriculture and buy truly local produce, farmers can afford to innovate by trying out new crops suited for the local soil and climate and experiment with techniques to extend the seasons on each end. The result is a boon to local farmers and consumers alike.

Given the demise of local agriculture that Edwards laments, it sounds like Jacksonville could benefit from a farmers market like that.

No Wonder Florida 'Farmers Market' Is a Flop

"The Community Farmers Market in Eagle Landing is off to a slow start," says the Clay Sun, a suburban Jacksonville newspaper. The paper's Web site carries three photos from the "farmers market" that may offer a pretty good explanation for why it's a flop. There's hardly a fruit or vegetable in sight. The three forlorn vendors in the market are mostly hawking flea market-type stuff.

Potential customers who happen upon this market are probably going to be too caught up in wondering 'why the heck are they calling this a farmers market' than in looking for something to buy.

Photo by CHRISTA HIEBER/staff intern Clay Sun