Michigan: “UCS released the report just a few days before the 12th annual U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Farmers Market Week, which starts Sunday. According to the report, “Market Forces: Creating Jobs through Public Investment in Local and Regional Food Systems,” the number of farmers markets nationwide more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, jumping from 2,863 to 6,132, and now more than 100,000 farms sell food directly to local consumers.”
Source: Huron Daily Tribune
Download the report here:
Report
“There are increasingly more farmer’s markets offering fresh fruits and vegetables in low income neighborhoods where before it would have cost residents to travel for healthy food choices.”
This seems to me to the kind of tip that would work so well in a market newsletter; maybe ask a Board member or a volunteer or a farmer to offer some tips for shopping at your market.Story
One of the most important roles for farmers markets is to encourage this type of innovation and allow the farmer a feedback loop from a diverse group of shoppers.
However, the story doesn’t say where the original grant came from though.
In 2001, CIW launched the Campaign for Fair Food with the first-ever farmworker boycott of a major fast-food company. The national boycott of Taco Bell called on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for human rights abuses in the fields where its produce is grown and picked.
The logic behind the Campaign for Fair Food is simple. Major corporate buyers — companies such as Publix, Ahold, Kroger and Wal-Mart — purchase a tremendous volume of fruits and vegetables, leveraging their buying power to demand the lowest possible prices from their suppliers. This, in turn, exerts a powerful downward pressure on wages and working conditions in these suppliers’ operations.
CIW
Better access to supermarkets — long touted as a way to curb obesity in low-income neighborhoods — doesn’t improve people’s diets, according to new research. The study, which tracked thousands of people in several large cities for 15 years, found that people didn’t eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhoods.The results, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, throw some cold water on the idea that lack of access to fresh produce and other healthful foods is a major driver in the disproportionate rates of obesity among the poor, or that simply encouraging grocery chains to open in deprived areas will fix the problem, said study lead author Barry Popkin, director of the Nutrition Transition Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Consider yourself a human again. More than one industry grocery giant is experimenting with ridding their stores of the self-checkout lines. I would assume that the stores losses were climbing (from theft at those checkouts and from people just walking out with stuff since there is less personnel up there to watch), and that the complaints also went up (no friendly interactions makes shoppers feel vulnerable so they are more critical.)
And, I’ll suppose that the growth of public markets is also showing the industrial system how to regrow trust and dignity when shopping.
Story
Once again, the social construct of our larger state or nation can reflect the work we are doing in our market communities. The question of why we have seen a reduction in crime is studied in this article. Recently I read (from Freakonomics author Steven Levitt and others) that when crime rates first began to fall in the 1990s, they pointed to the passing of Roe V Wade as causality, believing that children not growing up unwanted and without resources reduced later criminal behavior. This piece is pointed out in the article, along with other theories.
However, this article adds the argument that increasing diversity through the encouragement of a more varied ethnic, racial and demographic population in our cities and towns is the more direct cause of crime reduction.
The diversity issue is key for markets too, although probably not through the tabulation of crime stats! Still, if we add trust and encourage everyone to come to our markets, we’re bound to make more dynamic places that thrive.
The Atlantic
I wrote a greenpaper that is available on marketumbrella.org’s website about the lack for balance in mobile markets. I should have taken more issue with the name and the sustainability of them as some are not that mobile and some, many are not truly markets if you term that in the same vein as farmers markets (meaning competition) or if you believe Wikipedia:
For a market to be competitive, there must be more than a single buyer or seller. It has been suggested that two people may trade, but it takes at least three persons to have a market, so that there is competition on at least one of its two sides.[1] However, competitive markets rely on much larger numbers of both buyers and sellers. A market with single seller and multiple buyers is a monopoly. A market with a single buyer and multiple sellers is a monopsony. These are the extremes of imperfect competition.
It’s possible that a mobile truck could serve well as a long-term grocery store in some remote areas where resources especially capital and electricity are limited. Check out the briefs from The Center for Rural Affairs on rural grocery stores:
cfra
What I find though, is that mobile markets are another example of the industrial food system expecting to change little while getting the credit that they are feeding needy people. Sure they are getting food out there, but the mobility is overstated in some cases and as far as I know have not been shown to make long-term changes in food insecurity or to necessarily support growers or small businesses (Even with this headline generously given to it by HuffPost: Next Level Food Trucks: MoGro Eliminates Food Deserts). What is true to me is that they could serve a very important purpose, just like a buying club can or a food security farmers market does (that term comes from an emerging typology of markets, more coming soon on that…) by priming the pump for food system changes, if they would work hand in hand with farmers and potential market or store organizers.
This story is fascinating; check out where the guy worked before retiring and starting this project:
MoGro
Thanks to our friends the Greenhorns (well in the way that all farmers are our friends, not like we share a car or anything like that), we heard about this town named Cato in New York that has adopted a comprehensive agricultural plan to preserve farmland for the future. The town has 13 strategies, including conservation easements, the adoption of a Right-To-Farm Law and changes in zoning.
Read about it on the Greenhorns site “The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles” where they blog well about food and community.
this map shows smaller food deserts in the summer, when farmers markets are open. I find the new graduate student focus on farmers markets fascinating. It seems since so many probably grew up with the latest iterations, they assume their longevity. Glad of that.
Not sure its news that food deserts shrink when markets are open. Although, if it helps officialdom realize that we open farmers markets where they are needed, it could help.
I do prefer the Diego Rose (Louisiana Public Health Institute) definition of “food swamps” rather than food deserts to be more descriptive usually. Meaning areas swamped with bad food, rather than no food.
As many in the farmers market have figured out, funders come with expectations attached to the check. It is important to remember that when markets ask for financial support, they need to return a completed project and some learning that forwards the funders goals. So it’s important to talk now about HOW, WHAT, WHY we measure our work, so that those measurements make sense for our mission and our part of the movement.
This quote is from a philanthropy newsletter:
Wouldn’t it be fun – fun being a big incentive these days — to extend the Consumers Union model into the philanthropic worlds of charity, development, and justice? Wearing our consumer hats, we could impartially and rigorously “test” our neighborhood soup kitchen, for example, and compare them with others. We could do the same with our nearby job training and employment service. And our state coalition for (or against) our favorite cause.
Instead of Consumers Union, we could have a Clients Union, or a Beneficiaries Union. What about a Members Union? Me, I’d like to be part of a Stakeholders Union.
I have noticed that we have more than a few markets either on library property or within a very short walking distance around the country. This idea seems like a good way to link the two even more closely:
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 