Mother Jones: 4 Hopes for Obama's Farmers' Market

It looks as though President Obama is interested in starting a White House Farmers' Market. He says it could give Washington D.C. "more access to good, fresh food, but also is this enormous potential revenue-maker for local farmers in the area."

Mother Jones has come up with four things they'd like to see if the White House starts a market. Although they mention featuring "local, organic farmers," I would personally put a "producer-only market" (with a reasonable distance maximum, like 150 miles) at the very top of the list.

Click here for the article.

Saturday's Highland Market

Amy took some lovely pictures of our table at this Saturday's market. We work from 7:30-9:00 to get all of the food packaged and organized and ready to go. Once we're done it's nice to take a moment to appreciate it before the selling begins.

The whole spread. This week we had carrots, squash, basil, mustard greens, chard, salad mix, nasturtiums, herb medley, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

The squashes are one of my favorite things to grow (and look at). On the table is white scallop, tondo scuro, red kuri, and rampicante squashes. We also had red, orange and yellow carrots, and a little tomato/pepper accent.

Our flamingo chard and mustard greens. Amy made a display basket of fresh herbs and nasturtiums. Isn't it lovely?

Farmers' Market Abundance

I had promised some photos of a full, pre-market table (as opposed to the late-market table we showed here). These are from the Highland Farmers' Market on July 18th. It was the very last of our early season harvest. We've experienced a bit of a lull in the gardens' productivity over the last couple of weeks; the rest between the end of the cool-weather crops and the onslaught of the warm-weather harvest. In another week or two we should have a table full of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and other summer goodies. I can't wait!

Thanks to Amy (our FM neighbor, with Olde Crone's Bath Soap) and Jenn for snapping the photos.

The table.

Our salad mix display basket, with lettuces, arugula, and spinach. Lots of carrots, too - Kuroda, Cosmic Purple, and Lunar White.

The last of the season's peas.

Gotta love the beets! Bull's Blood, Albino, and Chioggia beets.

This was the first week that we packaged our fresh herbs with a vinaigrette/marinade recipe. It's been very popular.

Beautiful nasturtiums, basil, and beets.

Colorado Fresh Markets Will Require Labeling of All Out-of-State Produce

I want to thank all of you who took the time to send an email and share your desire for accurate labeling at our farmers' markets. I'm happy to report that I received a very timely reply from Chris Burke, president of the Colorado Fresh Markets (reprinted below).

In short, Chris agreed to include a requirement in their 2010 contracts that vendors label all out-of-state produce. They will "monitor more closely" the labeling for the remainder of the 2009 season.

I'm glad to hear this, because I believe that consumers (especially those that take the time to shop at a farmers' market) deserve to know where their food is grown. It's great that Chris and Michele Burke are taking these steps to increase transparency at their markets. However, in order for this to be effective, we (as customers) need to help by looking for signs and pointing out when they're absent.

We're entering into a bountiful season for Colorado produce, so it's likely that much of what is at the markets in the upcoming months will be local. It is during the spring when there seems to be the highest rate of out-of-state produce appearing at the markets. I will be interested to see how the customers respond to accurately labeled food, and how frequently they will opt to purchase the items grown in Colorado versus the items that were shipped in from far away.

My guess is that many customers will prefer the local produce (and shun the Californian and Mexican produce, once they realize how non-local it is). What do you think will happen next? I believe that the farmers will start to plant more of what CAN be grown in Colorado in the spring. Lovely veggies like lettuces, spinach, arugula, cress, mustard greens, kale, collards, radishes, turnips, beets, peas, herbs, onions, garlic, etc... and the travel-weary vegetables from far away will have a less prominent place at the table.

Here's Chris' response (reprinted with his permission):

Hi Sundari,

Thank you for your letter. We couldn’t agree more. In fact we have been working on a program we hope to launch this August that would highlight the products at Colorado Fresh Markets that are grown or made in Colorado. Although we go beyond the notions of a traditional farmers market, according to vendor applications CFM is primarily comprised of local products. We are very excited about this project and appreciate your suggestions. They are quite apropos at this time.

I was Executive Director of the Boulder Farmers Market for 8 years in the 90’s and helped to grow that market into what it is today. I have served on agricultural boards and committees on a local, regional and national level. I am very familiar with the issues but my wife Michele and I found the Denver market to be very different from Boulder when we started Colorado Fresh Markets 12 years ago. There were many challenges. In short, we evolved CFM according to customer demand and aimed to create a viable and dynamic marketplace that truly supports local businesses and local growers with a strong and well attended food event. As growers ourselves for 18 years, the Cherry Creek Fresh Market was by far the most viable and successful retail outlet for our Burke Organic Farm products.

Your request for vendors to label the origins of their products is a reasonable request to make. Although we’ve always asked vendors to label their products (conventional vs. organic, local vs. out-of-state) and they are required to list the origins of their produce on their annual applications, we will monitor it more closely and add it as a requirement on the 2010 applications. You may not see it this year because by this time of the growing season, everything should be local. Usually, vendors only fill in at the start of the season to help the markets get up and running so that when the local produce comes in, the markets are in full swing. We found that works best for the event and does the most to benefit the participants.

Thanks again for your comments.

Sincerely,
Christopher J. Burke
President

Open Letter: Request for Accurate Labeling at Farmers' Markets

Sent today to Michele Burke, owner of Colorado Fresh Markets

Dear Ms. Burke,

As the owner of Colorado Fresh Markets, you are responsible for operating the Cherry Creek, Stapleton, City Park, Civic Center, and Greenwood Village markets. These are undoubtably some of the largest and most successful markets in the Denver metro area. As such, you are in a unique position to influence the standards of practice at all Denver markets.

I would like to ask that you begin, immediately, to request that your vendors visually label any produce that is grown out of state. I understand that your contracts for the 2009 markets have been signed long ago. However, you could strongly request that they begin this practice for the remainder of the 2009 season, and include it as a requirement in your contracts for 2010.

Local food is becoming more of an important issue every day, as I'm sure you are aware. There are a multitude of reasons why consumers are interested in purchasing locally grown food, including food safety and security, environmental concerns, food taste and quality, and supporting the local economy. Farmers' Markets continue to receive press as the prime destination for anyone who wishes to buy food grown by Colorado farmers.

Food, especially produce, that is sold at a Farmers' Market (or a "Fresh" Market promoted as a Farmers' Market) is assumed to be local. This is something that I believe is critical we acknowledge. Although there are a small number of local food insiders who know that, more often than we would like, the produce at markets comes from California and Mexico (especially in the early part of the season), these folks are far and away the minority. If you were to stop 10 people at a Farmers' Market and ask them who grew the food at the nearby stall, I strongly believe that each and every one of them would state unequivocally that the food came from the local farm that is selling it.

"Local" is every bit as much a value-added concept as "organic." We would never sell conventionally grown produce as organic, so why is it acceptable to sell Californian and Mexican produce as local? I do know that many vendors will reveal the origins of the food to anyone who asks, but this is not enough. The vendors are far too busy to educate every person who comes to their stall, and many of the customers don't realize they should be asking.

Therefore, all produce that is grown out of state should be clearly, visually labeled as such. This is not prohibitively difficult for a vendor. The labeling could take the form of handwritten paper signs on the non-local items, or dividing the table with signs pointing one way for local and the other way for out of state, or the items could be labeled on the vendor's chalk or dry-erase board.

There is no reason why any responsible vendor would not agree to this. If they were to resist efforts to accurately label what they sell, they would be admitting that they are in fact invested in passing off their Mexican tomatoes as Colorado grown. I have heard the argument that Denver consumers demand variety at their markets (above and beyond what Colorado's seasonal produce can provide), and that's the reason the vendors "have" to sell out of state product. I don't necessarily agree with this premise (just look at the success of the Boulder growers-only Market), but I'm not trying to limit what vendors are allowed to sell. I am simply requesting that it be labeled properly. If someone wants to buy a melon from California that's fine with me, but I want them to know that it travelled 1,200 miles to get to them.

I am writing this as an open letter, as I feel this issue is critically important to many Denver consumers. I do happily make a portion of my living selling local food. However, I am not pressing this issue because of my business; I am asking as a Denver resident who loves Farmers' Markets. I also strongly believe in the rights of consumers to know the truth about what they eat, especially if they're taking the time to go to a Farmers' Market to shop.

I believe that requiring vendors to visually label all out of state produce is a simple step that will be greatly appreciated by your customers. I also think it will bring a level of transparency to the Denver markets that is currently lacking. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Sundari Kraft

Heirloom Gardens

The End of the Day at the Market

We've been selling our veggies at the Highland Farmers' Market for about 6 weeks now, and we're having a great time. We have several "regulars," who visit us every week for a bag of the salad mix or a multi-colored bunch of beets.

We are most definitely a micro-farm, but at the beginning of the market we do have our bounty. The table is so full we can hardly find space for our brochures, and we have 4 coolers full of extra bags of greens.

We are fortunate enough to sell just about everything we bring with us, so by the last hour of the market our supplies have dwindled significantly. Brian took these pictures 30 minutes before the market closed, in his dual role of official-photographer/fabulous-husband-who-helps-load-the-truck.

Usually at the beginning of the market we're quite busy and focused on getting everything set up, but soon we'll remember to bring the camera and take a "before" picture. For now, enjoy these "afters."

http://www.briankraft.com/HG/HeirloomGardens-HighlandsMarket-7-11-09.html

In the News - Westword Blog (Who grows the food at your local farmers' market?)

A few weeks ago I called Westword writer Joel Warner to make a wager. "I'll bet you $20," I said, "That if you stop 10 people at a farmers' market and ask them who grew the produce at the nearest stand, all 10 of them would look at you like you were an idiot. They'd say, 'Duh, the farmer standing there grew that food.'"

You know... those eggplants and melons and corn that they're selling --- in June.

Granted, there are tons of savvy locavore market-goers who know what it means to eat in season, and understand that those offerings have decidedly distant origins. But I suspect that most people who come to farmers' markets to shop do so because they want to support their community's farmers and "eat local," and believe that they are achieving this by purchasing from the folks that sell at farmstands under a local farm's banner.

I know that this is what I believed for a long time. It never occured to me that the produce at farmers' markets came off trucks from California --- dropping off boxes at the market before making a stop at Safeway to unload the rest. I'll never forget the day I was shopping at the Cherry Creek "Fresh" Market (it's not actually called a Farmers' Market, which is what its organizer explained to me as a way to justify all of the out-of-state product) and stopped at the stand for an organic farm. I picked up a tomato, which had a produce sticker on it. From Mexico.

I told the young woman selling the food that I appreciated their honesty - at least they were not removing the stickers and trying to pass the tomatoes off as their own. She looked horrified. I wouldn't be surprised if they had been instructed to remove the stickers, but the task had gotten lost in the shuffle.

Anyway, fast-forward a few years and I find myself manning my own little produce stand at a couple of local farmers' markets. We have a wonderful base of customers, with many new people stopping by each week. We always go out of our way to explain what our food is and how it's grown: "All of our produce is grown organically right here in the neighborhood. It travelled just a couple of miles to get here!" We bill ourselves as "ultra-local" to distinguish ourselves from the hybrid local/California/Mexico/God-knows-where farmstand down the way from us.

We typically sell pretty much everything we bring with us to the market, so we have no complaints. My only wish was for transparency. I couldn't stand the thought of my neighbors making the trip to their farmers' market with the best of intentions to buy local produce, and instead unwittingly leaving with a bag of stuff they might as well have purchased from Safeway. I support the right of shoppers to buy melons from California if they choose to -- I just want them to know that the melons travelled 1,200 miles to get to them.

The other farmstand at the Highlands Market now displays signs --- local produce on this side, out-of-state produce on the other side. This makes me happy. We don't need signs like that at our farmstand, which makes me even happier. Sadly, no such signs exist at the Cherry Creek "Fresh" Market, or at the others markets around town. And, despite the claims made in the article below by the Cherry Creek market manager, I'm sure local & non-local signs at that market would be pretty enlightening for the shoppers.

Many thanks to Joel for covering this... I wish for even more bullhorns to spread this message.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/06/urbavores_dilemma_separating_t.php

You can help make change happen - consumer DO control what is sold at the market (and how it is labeled). Please share this post with anyone who might be interested. Ask where the food is grown the next time you visit the farmers' market. Ask to speak to the market manager, and tell her/him that you want your market to feature LOCAL food (and insist on labeling for anything grown or produced out of state!).