A great framework to think about humanity and its potential.
As a citizen of the host city for Super Bowl 2013, I find the scale of this thing fascinating. In some ways, this event surpasses the festivities of Thanksgiving among some demographics. And of course, the two days are both about food and football and screaming (okay maybe that’s only some families)…
This article talks about the history of guacamole at Super Bowl festivities and how it is tied to the explosion of avocados grown and marketed in California starting in the 1980s according to the author:
In the 1980s, California saw a boom in avocado farm start-ups — a small-scale “green gold” rush, news outlets joked; easy avocado trees were the perfect crop for the gentleman farmer. More avocado farms meant a greater — and cheaper — avocado supply for the end user. This bounty, combined with the establishment of commissions to promote avocados and protect grower interests, triggered the classic feedback loop that mainstreams “exotic” food into American culture: The more visible and widely distributed a food becomes, the less strange it seems; the less strange it seems, the more widespread it becomes. You can see this cultural shift in a couple of banner years between the middle and end of the last century: A mid-summer bumper crop in 1960, two years before Jackie Kennedy served an avocado and crabmeat salad at a formal state dinner, cause the price per avocado to drop to 15 to 30 cents — roughly equivalent to $1.17 to $2.33 today, which we’d consider a bit high for a record low. In 1987, when Californians had been slicing avocado onto every burger and sandwich for about a decade, a similar surplus crop allowed New Yorkers to buy at 30 to 50 cents apiece (60 cents to $1 today).
So fascinating to think that for the next Super Bowl in New Orleans the state ag folks could start planning for a bumper crop of pecans and work to add roasted pecans, pecan pie to become the next tradition for Super Bowl Sunday.
The legendary founders of Fresh Farm Markets (in DC, Maryland and Virginia), Ann Yonkers and Bernie Prince shared their template for success for building markets in this article. Their characteristics for success include: producers only, local focus, good management, event and service ethos and markets acting as town squares. A solid list; what always occurs to me when I hear this are the amount of variables from that list that I see from market to market and region to region.
When I ran markets in New Orleans, we would have added:
Rain or shine, meaning a regularly occurring market.
The market as a mechanism for behavior change, meaning an active role to expand its reach by acknowledging the social determinants of health and affecting the policies that shape them, which is, of course, closely related to the town square ethos.
I’d also like to hear what YOUR non-negotiables are in your market community.
In other words, what are really the “non-negotiables” for all markets? How can we be sure that we get measured for what we actually do, and not what the neighboring market does or even what a partner organization thinks we should do without taking into consideration the capacity and goals of the existing market community.
I have been struggling with an article that I’ll share with the market and food system field (when completed) challenging researchers and practioners to help define sets of characteristics that will identify the types of market that the local community wants to offer. This methodology, called market typology, will show how communities choose their own structure, product selection and partnerships based on their goals and community assets and yet need to align their work with peers across the country in order to share and grow the field for the future.
If anyone is interested in reading the draft and commenting on the typology question, feel free to email me directly and I’ll send you a link.
I think purchasing cooperatives could be very useful for market producers or even neighboring markets.
These end of the year pieces can be interesting and yet disheartening too. This one seems to have a social justice lens and as such, it may be slightly more focused on winning policy changes in the industrial ag sector over actual alternative system wins in 2012. However, I agree with most of her top 5.
Erin O'Donnell: The Food Movement in 2012: Our Top 5 Learnings.
This is the kind of action alert that farmers and ranchers miss when there is no substantial statewide sustainable agricultural organization on which to rely. Again, to take it back to the market organizations-how can we help build the advocacy organizations for our farmers so they have access to programs to grow a better earth?
34 States Shut out of Organic Farm Program by Congress and White House – NSAC.
I do think that one of the emerging trends that is coming to community food system work – especially markets – will be worker cooperatives. Take advantage of the excellent peer work that DAWN offers to learn more about this and to assist rural farmers and producers in your area.
DAWN Launches Rural Worker Cooperatives Assistance Program | Democracy at Work Network.
“Understanding this process is awakening to the simple reality that nothing in this world is ever really new. Only recycled. Soil organisms are the engine of an endless reincarnation process through which land fertility is maintained.”
Wonderful piece on soil; please feel free to share widely with your communities. Again, I take this back to markets: if we as market organizers and producers can reawaken our regional bioregional and watershed communities to regrow our soil and clean our water, then I think we will have served our purpose for the Earth. How can we ensure that our work continues to transfer the knowledge needed? Good soil/bad soil comparison demos? More farm visits for our customers? Soil testing at markets?
The Lessons We Can Learn from France’s Fertile Soil – Environment – Utne Reader.
How about an incentive targeted to smokers using markets as part of their cessation program?
Smokers More Likely to Quit With Fruits & Vegetables | Care2 Healthy Living.
I am posting a link to analysis of market manager positions that I did for an organization in Maine.
It was meant to be a simple overview of the types of paid positions that exist in the market world and certainly could be and should be expanded in the future.
Ah incentives. This is a great interview with NYC Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs about their cash incentive program. The Mexico model was the one that was explained to us in New Orleans back in 2006 (by the same public health researcher that is now working for NYC) and became the basis of the markets’ innovative work on the Gulf Coast which continues to this day. We understood (because of her training) that we were using cash as a short-term way to reduce significant barriers around open-air farmers markets, especially for low-income shoppers that face barriers such as lack of transportation, short market hours (that are often at odds with service workers schedules), the need to learn new shopping behavior, the perception of markets as elitist and so on.
To me, markets are in the business of incentivizing behavior change and we use many tools to that end: events, seating, music, children’s educational resources, support for farmers to grow their businesses and so on. Cash incentives are now well understood by public health activists and so were brought to our markets as an efficient way to do targeted outreach to at-risk communities. It’s not the answer to all of our market issues, but it has allowed us to regain our rightful place as the center of innovation in community food systems and to add some disciplined measurement strategies to our portfolio.
I really like how the NYC describes this in the interview; I like the analogy of the tax code as being a set of incentives as well.
The entire series Freakonomics is based on incentives as well. Check that out for a macro view of the subject.
Link to interview
Living in New Orleans used to mean that I had a mild winter (if any) to deal with each year and January was about celebrating Carnival from Twelfth Night up until Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). Now as a market consultant, I spend the winter traveling to conferences and meetings, oddly almost all held in the northern climes!
Even with my aversion to cold, I am excited to be returning to Vermont for my third visit with NOFA-VT, and the second time I will be attending their Direct Marketing Conference held in lovely South Royalton VT.
Beginning last fall, I started work with NOFA-VT and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to study their card and token currency systems in the markets and comparing them to other states’ systems in view of the 2020 implementation of WIC to EBT cards – as well as the new technology that is swirling around like Square and the new upcoming Novo Dia Group smart phone app for cc/debit/food stamps. Also included in this research is the need to ascertain if these systems (which of course include incentives, FMNP coupons, WIC vouchers and in some states veggie prescriptions too) are working well at market level and how to measure them.
I have been calling on my colleagues across a dozen states and networks to hear their analysis which has been shared most generously. Now, I go to Vermont to gather some case studies from farmers and market managers to round out the raw data which then will need to be crammed into a manageable report for Vermont come early spring.
wish me luck.
And, email me or call me if you have data on a network or state level that you wish to share.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 