2019 for farmers markets

As usual, I’d like to offer my thoughts as to what may be in store for farmers market organizers and producers in the coming year (as I did in past years: 2018, 2017..)

With the end of year passage of the Farm Bill (coming as a welcome surprise after watching the summer-long legislative shenanigans in the House), the organizing for direct marketing for 2019 is now slightly altered. The inclusion of LAMP in the bill offers markets some stability for grant funding with AMS over the next 5 years and also means a better chance of FMLFPP funding being included in future bills. Two other changes may be significant for farmers markets: the requirement of a 25% match for FMPP proposals (it had only been required for LFPP proposals previously), and the language to “support partnerships to plan or develop regional food systems” which is funded at 5 million per year. The FMPP match requirement seems to indicate that the grants will be prioritized for those who build deep partnerships into their proposals, and seems to be born out by the added 5 million for partnership work. Those partnerships could (and should) put market organizations in leadership roles for regional policy work, especially in terms of vendor needs (more in a minute on this), disaster response planning, and climate change initiatives. I certainly expect existing network leaders and state-level market associations to stay tuned to the development of this funding by AMS and avail themselves of it. If it turns out that the funding is meant for those entities, I would expect them to use it to build capacity for their markets, especially in the area of increased data collection capabilities and dynamic data-driven analysis. That would align with my 2017 mantras for markets:

Don’t Hide the Hard Work
Function like a Network Whenever Possible

both of which can be operationalized through data collected by market organizations and used collectively.

Two other areas that I expect to be active among markets in the coming year and beyond is in verification of local claims and in product development initiatives. The first has been climbing the ladder of priorities since the explosion of meal kit box programs, grocery store fragmentation, and the use of “local” in marketing language by every kind of player in intermediate channels (i.e. specialty stores, restaurants.) Farmers Market Coalition has even begun to discuss this regularly in house and included this topic at 2018’s inaugural Direct Marketing Ag Summit, in a presentation by Washington State Farmers Market Association’s Colleen Donovan whose work on market integrity is well known, and Boulder County Farmers Market CEO Brian Coppom who is fast becoming a great national spokesperson for farmers markets on the subject. FMC also added to the conversation around brand integrity in 2018 by taking over the management of the Buy Fresh Buy Local brand.

There is much to do on this but my sense is the best way for markets and other local food authorities (like BFBL leaders) to own it is (1) through clarified language around local/regional, going through a process to find out the community definition of local/regional that works best there, and (2) transparent verification systems that explain/illustrate geographic proximity and proper stewardship of land and water. Once those are accomplished, state legislative language protecting it may be helpful.

The product development work is a little less visible, but nonetheless is happening among some innovators. I’ve had recent conversations about this work with Grow NYC and a few others and expect to hear more, especially with the increased use of Metrics by markets to collect data. That data collection has been a game changer for market organizations as the necessity of collecting data from their vendors has sometimes turned out to be a point of contention. That tension is usually because those markets have never systematically collected market day data or used longitudinal data as the basis for market day decisions, relying entirely on management levels or logistical or outside funding priorities to decide when to add vendors or market days or even when doing event planning!

In the past few years of pilots with markets, the Metrics team (which includes me of course!) has advocated that the best way to make the need for collection understandable to ones vendors is to openly and simply share market level data which can then be compared privately with their business and product- level data, allowing for more complete business intelligence for those entrepreneurs. Building this type of partnership with vendors also levels the field, as data becomes the lingua franca of market day decision-making rather than those being (or seeming to be) made willy-nilly or behind closed doors arbitrarily without vendors input. Still, this culture will take some time to happen, so the more market leaders think about, research, and support development and marketing of biodiverse items at their markets, the more they will understand their vendors businesses and consumer preferences and will be able to build partnerships and find funding to add products that data shows will do well at that market.

Throughout this post the one word I have used again and again is the one that I hope sticks with markets: partnerships. These need to be more foundational (meaning include those partners in how the market itself is managed not just about the shared program), more dynamic (check in regularly to see if they are working and why), and be more diverse (hopefully self-explanatory). These partnerships, if designed well, will absolutely reduce the wear and tear on market staff and minimize turnover and burnout.

If every market reading this post set a goal to add two more (*non-traditional) partners to their program development planning, and started to consider their vendors as partners, I think 2019 would be a banner year in farmers market development.

*non-traditional: meaning partnerships beyond those who have shared outcomes in terms of direct marketing agriculture or increasing use of federal benefit programs for healthy food (although the latter were non-traditional partners not so long ago). This could include immigration services agencies who could help with vendor and shopper development, agencies working on public transportation amenities who could help with adding walking, biking, bus-riding people to markets, social justice organizations working on civic engagement, real-estate professionals who are in contact with new residents and could direct them to their local market, and so on.

Let’s raise the profile of regional food in climate change work

Having been in Northeast Ohio and Western PA over the last few months (and the rest of my time in my home of SE Louisiana), I have spent a lot of time recently pondering the role of community food work in the larger work of addressing the effects of climate change. Many governments have committed to mitigating the effects of our unstable climate with a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels, putting their public works on a “road diet,” investing in energy efficient methods and resources and in other smart technologies and collaborations.

For example, the cities of Cleveland and Pittsburgh- two once smelly, burny cities- are at the forefront of those efforts in the Midwest. Cleveland has the added responsibility of overseeing their portion of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie. The Great Lakes are key because they hold 20% of the world’s freshwater. Yes that’s right. 20%.

Cleveland’s Sustainability 2019 project has been impressive in its scope and in its collaborative efforts to link nine areas of work:

Energy Efficiency
Local Foods
Renewable Energy
Zero Waste
Clean Water
Sustainable Transportation
Vibrant Green Space
Vital Neighborhood
Engaged People

For its part, the City of Pittsburgh was an early signatory on the Milan Food Pact and a strong city leader in the Paris Agreement with private corporations also exploring their part in sustainability.

And back home in New Orleans, Mayor Cantrell and the City Council have indicated their support for sustainable infrastructure, including the over 100 new miles of bicycle lanes and LEED-certified schools and libraries, all built in the aftermath of the 2005 levee breaks.

One such area that seems wobbly in many of those efforts is the connection to the small-scaled food production arena, which remains largely outside of the resources and support in the climate change efforts in the US. Not only in including these food system leaders in that planning, ensuring that good stewards of land and water are part of new policies for the use of that land and water, but also in including them in the decisions in disaster recovery efforts and rebuilding.
Its time for us to demand that local farmers and regional food system be a large part of the solution. To do that, let’s find ways to share information like this more often:

Help the “Tiny but Mighty” Ten

I was able to hear an update from FMC’s Policy Director Ben Feldman today and would like to give a quick overview and call to action for all of my readers:

Hidden in all of the activity on Capitol Hill this month is Congress’ inability to pass a new farm bill. As many of you hopefully know, a new farm bill is passed every five years. The House and the Senate had each worked on their own version, but were unable to get anything out of shared committee to vote on. (One main difference between the two bills was work requirements for SNAP recipients, and the inclusion of LAMP* in the Senate version which would help the Tiny but Mighty programs, but the story now is that there are many other stumbling blocks to a final bill coming out of committee.)

What that means is that in a few days (September 30th) the current Farm Bill expires. The session is likely to end without an extension of 2014’s Farm Bill either. This leaves it to the lame duck session in 2019 to either get a new bill passed or an extension of the 2014 bill, and since that short session means some members are on their way home, and others may be waiting for new jobs on committees there is little hope a new Farm Bill will come from that session. However, it is quite possible that the lame duck session will pass an extension to the 2014 Farm Bill.

The biggest problem with only getting an extension of 2014’s FB as the achievement of the lame duck session will be the lack of funding included for what is called the “Tiny and Mighty” programs which do not have baseline funding. Baseline funding is essentially a funding threshold where programs are assumed to continue either in a new Farm Bill or in an extension of an old one. Without baseline funding, the Tiny but Mighty programs need to be named and inserted in any extension which is unlikely without pressure.

These are programs that have large impacts but small funding. Here is NSAC’s list of programs that will sunset on the 30th:

Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program
Conservation Reserve Program – Transition Incentives Program
Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP)
Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives Program (FINI)
National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (NOCCP)
Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI)
Organic Production and Market Data Initiative *
Outreach and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers *
Rural Micro entrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP)
Value-Added Producer Grants Program (VAPG)

This does not mean that grants funded by these programs before September 30 are in danger; if your project received funding in 2017 or 2018 with these programs, that money is already appropriated and will be available to you for the life of your grant.

From NSAC:

The ten tiny but mighty programs of this series have made a nearly half billion-dollar investment in American food and farm systems over the course of the current farm bill cycle. These programs have represented 100 percent of the farm bill funding for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmer programs, organic programs, and rural economic development spending.

Needless to say, spending for these critical programs is minuscule relative to the cost of the full farm bill, weighing in at just a fraction of one percent of total farm bill funding. Under a three-month extension scenario, for example, Congress would need to invest only $35 million to keep these critical programs active at their current 2014 Farm Bill funding levels.

So the message here is: write to your reps and senators and remind them of the work and impact that your farmers markets, CSAs, food hubs, farmer training programs and so on have in your community, and how these funds have helped your work in the past. Ask them to get an extension passed in the short term with the 10 Tiny but Mighty programs included. And then to get busy on the new Farm Bill.

They need to hear from you. Again and again. And as Hoosier Farmers Market Association pointed out on today’s call, those of you who work at the state level or on policy councils can help by amassing data on what DTC outlets and farmers in your state or area of work have received from those 10 programs and the impacts of those awards to send along to your elected officials.

*The Senate’s 2018 Farm Bill includes language to establish the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), which would provide permanent funding for local food by consolidating existing programs into a single program.

LAMP would:

Consolidate Value Added Producer Grants, Farmers Market/Local Food Promotion Program, Value Chain Coordinators, and planning partnerships into a new program administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service in coordination with Rural Business-Cooperative Service;
Maintain purpose and eligible entities for each program;
Identify Cooperative Extension Service as the lead for outreach and technical assistance;
Provide $60 million in mandatory funding and $20 million in appropriated funding;
Reserve 35% of funding for farmer or rancher grants; and
Reserve 10% of funding for projects supporting beginning, veteran, and socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers.

2018: Capacity, scale, and form.

As we head into the new year, my region begins its most productive and celebratory season. Now the height of citrus season, oyster harvests, gorgeous greens and multi-colored root veggies, we are also on the cusp of our Carnival season, starting on January 6th. It starts then because Carnival is a pre-Lenten celebration and that is the date of Feast of the Epiphany known in France as Le Jour des Rois and in Latin American countries as Dia de los Reyes Magos. Coincidentally, it is also the Maid of Orleans Joan of Arc’s birthday which is also celebrated in New Orleans with one of the most beautiful candelit parades on her day.
Parades and king cake parties will go on here until “Fat Tuesday” which is February 13th in 2018 and is the day before Ash Wednesday. That begins the Lenten countdown to Easter.
By the way, how many of you know that where Easter falls is based on the natural world?

First, find the vernal equinox, or the first day of spring (about March 21-22), on a calendar that lists basic astronomical data. Then look for the next full moon. Easter Sunday will then fall on the following Sunday.

The farmers markets have the same joyous Carnival attitude all winter here. Productivity does that. Satisfaction and anticipation can be seen in the faces of those behind their tables, with actual oohs and aahs from those spying those deep red Ponchatoula strawberries, or watching a senior walk to their car dwarfed by a bag of greens. Very similar to those presenting carnival tableaus from atop a float or those catching “throws” from below.

Having a sunny mild winter at the same time as a beautiful and convivial public celebration that lasts for weeks always strikes me as the best of luck that landed at my feet.
And it also reminds me how the work we do in farmers markets IS joyous and as good of a measure of the civic health of our places as public events like Carnival.
In this start of year post, I usually go on and on about the importance of markets and measurement and system thinking. If that appeals to you, you’ll find plenty of that in my archives.
But today, I just want to share what the godfather of place and stewardship, Wendell Berry wrote in his new book, “The Art of Loading Brush”:

It is a formidable paradox that in order to achieve the sort of limitlessness we have begun to call sustainability, whether in human life or the other life of the ecosphere, strict limits must be observed. Enduring structures of household and family life, or the life of the community or the life of the country, cannot be formed except within limits. We must not outdistance local knowledge and affection, or the capacities of local persons to pay attention to details, to the “minute particulars” only by which, William Blake thought, we can do good to one another.

Within limits, we can think of rightness of scale. When the scale is right, we can imagine completeness of form.

That, my friends, is my 2018 call to action. Capacity, scale, form. How we understand this concept for our work, especially now when so many outside actors strive to co-opt our language and mock our efforts as too small or too limiting is vital.

So you’ll find me talking about these three points all year, adding them to my 2017 exhortations specifically for market organizations (“Don’t hide the hard work” and “act like networks, not silos”) in all public presentations and posts here.

I hope to see many of you in person and to talk to more of you via (appropriate) technology.

And I hope your winter is joyous and productive.


Share this:
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Click to print (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Like this:
Like Loading...



	
	
				
							01/02/2018			DW
						
				civic engagement, farmers markets			
			
			wendell berry



			
				

	
		
			The international language of farmers markets
		
		
						This is the second piece I have read in as many days about the role of local food to support newly arrived residents. A few years back, I wrote a presentation about trends in farmers markets and what may be coming in the next era: one such possible trend was an increase in attracting immigrant population attendance to markets both as vendors and as shoppers. (Another was the role of planning departments and city officials to use markets to build social cohesion in public space; based on the number of calls and emails from those departments and from municipalities on building or renovating public markets or asking how to work with existing open-air market organizations to create a permanent, public presence for local food, that may be happening in your corner of the world.)

In truth, it is vital that markets start to reach out to a multiplicity of resident demographics, moving away from only using the passive media that attracted the early adopters in the first few decades and moving to targeted outreach and the use of multi-language, graphically-strong materials. When I go to a town that has hired me to help increase their shopping base, one of the first questions I ask is who are the new residents and how many of them are ESL shoppers. I am surprised by how few market organizations know the answer and are unsure of where to find information about the cultural goods and habits of that demographic. In contrast, those markets that are aware and adding materials for those new shoppers are finding more loyal and savvy shoppers of their markets, and ultimately building great farmers too. If you are aware of who is moving to your area, use the FMC listserve to ask other markets with that same population if they have materials or what they used to get their attention. Reach out to government program managers and to centers and settlement houses* to see if there are any in your area.
I did an article for Growing For Markets in the November 2012 issue (“Growers offer immigrants familiar vegetables”) about one such project being conducted in Toronto (which has an incredibly dynamic immigrant population) called the World Crops Project which had all of the main components for  successful entry for growers into the local markets. It was a very thoughtful approach to newly arrived residents being seen as both producers and as shoppers. Here is the link but you will need a subscription to Growing For Markets to access it. If you don’t have a subscription, maybe now is the time to get one. They have a great archive of articles for growers that can be shared with vendors. 
So build those partnerships and ask for the research to help your market find its next wave of community members.
Quote from the first article: 
Unlike other ubiquitous institutions like hospitals or government, a person can operate in a market without knowledge of the local language, provided they speak marketese, the international language of farmer’s markets.
Source: Read the rest of the above article here
The other piece on immigrants and food systems comes out of the excellent work being done in Buffalo NY. This was a qualitative case study of two ethnic food retailers and how they could advance the grower-retailer relationship.
 Ethnic retail food outlets can not only improve public health by stocking and selling healthy foods to urban consumers; they can also provide a market for produce grown locally and regionally. Typically, ethnic growers must travel long distances to acquire produce. Local governments can facilitate networking among local and regional growers and ethnic wholesalers/distributors/retailers to evaluate possibilities for growing (at least some) ethnic crops within their region. One of the store owners interviewed for this study reported that she occasionally visits produce markets in Buffalo, and she expressed interest in working with local farmers more systematically to grow high-demand ethnic vegetables, to allow her to stock this produce more consistently. 
Dowload the report here
• “Since World War II, the number of settlements has fluctuated. Today, it is estimated that there are more than 900 settlement houses in the United States, according to UNCA, an association of 156 of them.”
Share this:
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Click to print (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Like this:
Like Loading...
					


		
	


	
	
				
							08/21/2017			DW
						
				articles, civic engagement, diversity/racial justice, economic development issues, entrepreneurs, farmers markets, immigrant issues			
			
			Agricultural Institute of Marin, Buffalo NY, Maryam Khojasteh
					
	



			
				

	
		
			Social isolation, loneliness could be greater threat to public health than obesity
		
		
						I encourage you to cite this report and the ‘loneliness epidemic’ when preparing proposals to city or county entities or public health advocates. Framing the market as a connector and place of civic engagement will allow your market to write a proposal to fund children’s activities like POP, and to offer more seating and events in order to bridge to more people and to allow more bonding.
There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators,” said Holt-Lunstad. With an increasingly aging population, the effect on public health is only anticipated to increase. Indeed, many nations around the world now suggest we are facing a ‘loneliness epidemic.’

….adding that community planners should make sure to include shared social spaces that encourage gathering and interaction, such as recreation centers and community gardens.
Source: Social isolation, loneliness could be greater threat to public health than obesity –
Share this:
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Click to print (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Like this:
Like Loading...
					


		
	


	
	
				
							08/07/2017			DW
						
				civic engagement, fundraising, philanthropy, public health, seniors, social capital, social cohesion			
			
			
					
	



			
				

	
		
			What if Our Economic System Was Set Up to Generate Happiness? 
		
		
						In the design of our community food system, it is clear that our work must be coordinated with other sectors of civil society even as we do our best to remain light and fun and designed to encourage regular, easy participation. Some may assign this work under the social determinants of health but I think organizers need to be expansive and exciting with words as often as possible. Using terms such as lasting happiness and well-being as goals of our work offers that vision.
This podcast showcases Liz Ziedler, co-founder of Happy City Bristol, an organization geared towards fostering holistic happiness in Bristol, U.K., through measurement tools, workshops, and campaigns.

Lasting happiness should be our real aim for any system change and one that is articulated by a sense of community,  purpose in your life, availability to nature and so on. All of these things can be helped with the community food system leading the way. ( I love her idea of “topping off the reservoir” of good times to build the resilience you need for tougher times. Wouldn’t that be a cool way to describe one impact gained from regularly attending farmers markets?)

What works helping people and places to flourish? What supports that kind of mind shift?

Here is how Happy City does their work:
– communication and campaigns: using all kinds of mediums to get people thinking, talking, sharing about well-being;

– training: get skills and habits into lives to know and use resiliency tactics;

– measurement and policy: offering an alternative to using GDP as the measurement for the individual, for communities and organizations and policymakers (Happy City Pulse). Survey of different areas of well-being, using academic and experiential knowledge to measure (loosely):

Be (emotional)

Do (behavioral

Connect (social)
HC uses the federated territory model (love the term) to help each place using Happy City’s resources maintain their own path and independence.
Their Happy City Index also measures if the right conditions exist to build well-being.
Lots of great ideas as to how to combat industrial system or commodity thinking and language and tools for us to use. The discussion in the interview about the connection of happiness, equity, and sustainability was really great.  As was the talk around challenging the status quo on economic measurement through individual patterns which then leads to those engaged persons entering the political arena to work on changes at the municipal level and then to the system level.
 

Share this:
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Click to print (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Like this:
Like Loading...
					


		
	


	
	
				
							06/22/2017			DW
						
				civic engagement, ecological capital, economic development issues, environmental issues, Farmers Market Metrics, human capital, humor, manuals, metrics, other sectors, philanthropy, Polls/Surveys, social capital, social cohesion, social determinants			
			
			happiness index, Happy City Bristol
					
	



			
				
		Post navigation

	
				 Older posts