Mapping 2023

One thing I do each December is to think about my work year, what I wished I had accomplished and what I might do in the next year. I am sure this list is no surprise to any of the hardworking market operators and market partners that I wish I had done more for in 2022, but in these exhausting years of the COVID crisis, there has been a growing and mostly unmet need to offer organizational services such as grant writing assistance, board development and governance audits, staff Human Resources support, and product development for market vendors.

In 2023, I am determined to redouble my efforts to increase support for farmers market operators through more directed technical assistance and resource collection and creation, both in my staff role at Farmers Market Coalition and in my small role in my own time working as a consultant directly with markets across the US and with the newly emerging World Farmers Markets Coalition.

Here are some of my 2023 goals:

Continue connecting climate activists and funders to community food leaders so our work can be named, outlined, and funded in the climate mitigation work happening across the US and globe. This includes seeking funding for a disaster recovery toolkit for farmers markets;

Pick up new skills and tools including completing a course on mapping networks which I believe is an excellent tool for market leaders to know exactly where they need to deploy their limited resources for maximum effect;

I also have carried around a longer term goal to start too seek funding for an FM Anthology book; once secured, asking writers and activists to contribute pieces on the vision and history of the modern market movement that illustrate how it has contributed so much to localized health and wealth initiatives in thousands of places across the globe;

Working more on a regional effort here in New Orleans named the Pontchartrain Network to increase connections across the dozen or so Louisiana parishes and MS counties that rely on the lake watershed. That work will focus on educational efforts to all civic leaders about how to achieve increased production and consumption of food grown in the region;

At FMC, we will be seeking a new Executive Director in 2023, as Ben Feldman plans to step down after a successful run the last 3 + years (although I certainly hope he will remain as our policy person);

I expect to help the authors of the Anti Racist Farmers Market Toolkit with their goal of implementation of its strategies in markets by helping them secure funding for that work. If we get those efforts well underway, we can begin to seek leaders in the indigenous community to add their own content towards similar strategies so the modern market system can also be a more useful tool for tribal nations that are prioritizing culturally meaningful production and healthy options for their residents; to that same end, our work with USDA supporting a pilot of 1890 land-grant universities to add farmers markets to their campuses has already taught our team a great deal about how to help their efforts and we would hope to add more sites and 1994 land-grant universities and Hispanic-serving universities in future rounds of that work;

We will also be working on the new Regional Food Business Centers that USDA has added as a new level of support to regional food systems, and expecting to play a large role in the work with farmers markets across all of the centers;

Our food access team will seek to expand its funding to assist market organizations and states that are branching out past GusNIP funding for permanent incentive and benefit program support, as well as continue to support the large pool of GusNIP grantees whose work often becomes the realpolitik for food access decisions at USDA.

And with my decades of work on finding appropriate and relevant evaluation systems for community food system leaders to use (rather than funder or academic versions of what they think evaluation should mean), we will continue to create and support software and analog tools to conduct low-intensity evaluation of the many many impacts that markets have on their community, and in helping those with data turn them into infographics and analysis they can use to increase funding and awareness.

One other priority will remain: the development of FMC into serving a permanent role as the dynamic, stable, and effective go-to entity for the estimated 9,000 market communities in the US, as well as supporting our partners in similar sectors such as CSAs, farm stands, agritourism, and community gardening to be able to do the same. I am happy to report that that internal work is being ably managed by our Deputy Director Willa Sheikh and enthusiastically aided by our entire stellar FMC team which I am deeply proud to work alongside. Learn more about them here: https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/joinus/team/

So that’s my plan. I’d love to hear some of your plans around farmers market work and maybe even build a support network for those of us who do this work. If so, leave a comment.

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Kuni can help our markets

I am always scouring for new books that may help our markets to advance their system change work. One major lesson I work to keep in my front mind is how best to assist market operators in prioritizing working as networks rather than “silos.”

I have written on this subject, some of which can be found by searching in this blog under “networks”; for now, this is a good example : https://darlenewolnik.com/2021/12/20/local-resiliency-shouldnt-be-the-goal/

In many of those posts, I consider the effect of climate chaos and civil unrest on the still-fragile, but always-energetic pop up farmers market sector, and suggest that the success rate of reducing organizer and producer burnout and increasing engagement is almost entirely dependent on thinking regionally, or as you will hear later, territorially.

The idea of regionalism may seem already knit into the community food movement, but I see plenty of examples of food leaders misinterpreting true regionalism. One example is how few urban farmers market managers and volunteers visit their rural and exurban vendor farms regularly. Or, how few community food leaders speak up for regional planning issues which directly impact their farmers and other producers. And I talk to plenty of rural farmers market operators who bypass the replicable operational lessons that their urban sistren and brethren market operators have to share, or mistakenly feel they don’t need to focus on justice work.

And long before 2022, all organizers were struggling with the rapidly unfolding and difficult work of assessing and mitigating disruptions, either because they thought only hyper-locally or, didn’t define their region as expansively as it needs. For example, in 2005 when the federal levees broke after Hurricane Katrina ravaged LA and MS, my organization Market Umbrella struggled to find enough partners to rebuild our region – but not because we had not thought regionally previously, but because the region we HAD developed was entirely in the same situation. In other words, we had established a bioregion for our farmers markets (even going as far as defining our allowable vendor range as anywhere in the “American Alligator region” which spanned multiple states as the climate and agricultural products were shared with New Orleans) but in terms of truly creating organizational and community resilience, we would have benefited from deeper relationships north and west – and not just south and east – and in other sectors such as housing and transportation. (We also struggled because few other entities were able to work regionally which is part of what disaster exacerbates and why you have to have that approach before the bad day comes.) So I now know only so well that political, cultural, and even historic trade regions are as vital for food organizers to know for their own work. And while ensuring that racial justice is front and center in our work, simply ignoring those outside of our “blue” or “red” area will not serve our shared goals very well.

In terms of offering a global framework, the FAO report titled “Mapping of territorial markets; methodology and guidelines for participatory data collection” was recently recommended to me. The report essentially defines what the US calls “local” or “producer-only” markets (of course, neither of which are entirely precise) as territorial markets. From the report:
The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) defined these ‘embedded markets’ as ‘territorial markets’ (CFS, 2016a), characterized by the following criteria:
◗ They are directly linked to local, national and/or regional food systems (the vast majority of products, producers, retailers and consumers are from the given territory).
◗ They are more characterized than other markets by horizontal (i.e. non-hierarchical) relations among the various stakeholders.
◗ They are inclusive and diverse in terms of stakeholders and products.
◗ They have multiple economic, social, cultural and ecological functions within their respective territory, and are thus not limited to food supply.

◗They are the most remunerative for smallholder farmers (as compared to other kinds of market), as they offer the farmers greater bargaining power over prices.
◗ They contribute to structuring the territorial economy, creating wealth and redistributing it within the territory.
◗ They can be formal, informal or a hybrid of the two.
◗ They can be located at different levels within territories (local, national and cross-border).

What is especially instructive to me about this description is the work we have in front of us in the U.S. to ensure our farmer markets measure up to this and to other categorizations and our policy partners understand it too.

All of this chat about networks leads to a recommendation for a model encapsulated in a new book due out in October:

Kuni: A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnection

In the book, Tsuyoshi Sekihara and Richard McCarthy take turns with descriptions and illustrations of what reimagining of the rural-urban relationship might look like and what results it could offer. Sekihara is the founder of the Kamiechigo Yamazato Fan Club, a community development organization focused on the holistic revival of Japan’s rural areas, while Richard was the founder and the longtime director of the U.S. based regional farmers market organization, Market Umbrella that I mentioned above.

“Kuni” is both a reimagining of the Japanese word for nation and an approach to reviving communities. It shows what happens when dedicated people band together and invest their hearts, minds, and souls back into a community, modeling a new way of living that actually works. A kuni can be created anywhere–even a hamlet on the verge of extinction–and embodies 7 key principles:

Everyone is equal in a kuni
Kuni is equipped with a regional management organization–a democratic organization that takes care of small public services
Kuni is a link between residents and repeat visitors
Life in a kuni is circular–consumption and production are in balance
Kuni embraces the whole person

I’ll add a bit of Wendell Berry here with how he suggested communities should also think through the appropriate scale for human centered regionalism:

“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.”

Much of what Kuni (and Berry) are lifting up, we are seeing in some extraordinary US farmers markets and food work, most often led by Black, persons of color, and indigenous leaders. No surprise to me that what white-led and designed organizations are trying to figure out in the current work to become active anti-racist allies, our sisters and brothers knew already.

Chiefly among that is to eschew linear, hierarchal, purely capitalistic roles and structures for those that value the entire human, have a democratic center, and prioritize balance and inclusion. Once a community embraces that, the sky is the limit in terms of impact and organizational health. That will be the reward for listening to leaders who came to this work with system change as their goal and to those who are leading us with care and intention: that the food community thrives by establishing regional connections, valuing human-centered innovation and the realization of our shared future.

PreOrder Kuni: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781623177317

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Disaster planning and markets

I assume my readers have correctly surmised that I live in the hurricane zone of New Orleans and that as a result, am always interested in talking with operators about and looking for ways to prepare for the inevitable interruption. How markets help in the recovery and rebuilding of current disasters and what we develop as a resistance to future disasters is something for which we can all prepare ourselves. Disasters that U.S. markets have had to handle just this half decade include damage to persons, home and food production because of climate chaos, infrastructure collapse, civil unrest, mass shootings, police actions, pandemic shutdowns and I’m sure there are more types that I forgot to cover.

As a New Orleans resident and as a part-time US market consultant, I am always thinking about how I can help my own area and others too.

At FMC too we think a lot about it, since we provide support to markets (through grants and contracts) by:

a) facilitating technical assistance or networking with peers or building communities of practice to solve an issue;

b) the development or dissemination of resources;

c) offering analysis of the sector, of programs or directly to a market;

d) assisting or leading in the development of low or high tech suitable for market operational needs.

…- so check in with me if you have ideas about how FMC can do that around disaster recovery. Here is some of what we have gathered and created so far. And we are also excited to be a founding member of the World Farmers Markets Coalition where we expect to learn much to bring back to US markets on this subject and others.

On their own, most market organizations will not be able to organize themselves out of a disaster because the long effort over many phases requires prior informal and formal relationships with local and regional governments, and some resources that are held outside of the impact zone. So the goal should be to have updated regional databases of farmers, value-added producers, production areas, agricultural experts, justice allies (cuz disaster is quite often a time when privilege and racist policies are the structure used to offer support and to restore communities), templates, data about the market sector around the disaster area, and the right connections already made with government entities and activists in and around the food system.

One reason that those local and regional governments will search for your organization after a disaster will be because of those databases and the shared lessons from other market communities you have but for it to be helpful to those entities, your preparation will need to be more than just about your market community. So organizing now around civic and agricultural partnerships- even if done lightly for now – will allow a faster recovery by keeping you at the table and in the loop. And when farmers and others see your ability to respond to a moment, you could even grow your market once recovery is over.

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local resiliency shouldn’t be the goal

At the end of this second year of the COVID era, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the thousands of market leaders, tens of thousands of producers, and the hundreds of thousands of our neighbors who have continued to prioritize regional food in their lives even during this horrific pandemic.

I think we had hoped that we had passed the biggest test of the COVID crisis, but it is possible that we may have a bigger one: to find the fortitude to safely withstand the succession of its outbreaks over the next few months and possibly even years while still attempting to grow the number and diversity of those able to purchase healthy food for their families. And to do that even as other shocks (climate chaos, the pitched battle over white supremacy, crumbling infrastructure) hit our communities at the same time.

People often call this being resilient.

Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult situations. That seems straightforward, but many communities have pointed out that very adaptation can become the only action or the status quo, allowing government to rely on that resiliency rather than attempting to solve the underlying issues. Depending on the crisis or series of crises, it can be depleted and once gone, can mean catastrophe for a community by allowing outside actors to become the only arbiters of what happens during recovery.

-from the site Edge Effects:

Resiliency-based planning, however, has been opposed by grassroots organizations and activists. In 2015 in response to the City of New Orleans’s resilience strategy, posters started appearing throughout New Orleans quoting Tracie Washington of the Louisiana Justice Institute. “Stop calling me resilient,” the posters read, “Because every time you say, ‘Oh, they’re resilient,’ that means you can do something else to me. I am not resilient.” As (it) makes clear, instead of simply addressing the cause of environmental degradation such as land loss, Louisiana has apparently accepted the inevitability of this degradation–and is learning how to cope.

We should acknowledge and credit resiliency but insist on creating more participatory and dynamic solutions, focusing funding and efforts to those that are contextual to that place and its scope.

In terms of being contextual to that place, writer Jane Jacobs suggested that one of municipalities’ main activities be (I’m paraphrasing her here) actively replacing imported goods and ideas with regional goods and home-grown creativity whenever possible. To do what Jacobs suggested requires participatory structures and illustrative pilots for government to draw from. That ability to test multiple solutions at the community level would be one strategy that food system leaders can use in outlining as to why our work is so important to municipalities’ plans.

And whenever we talk about scale in food systems, the discussion often settles into a set of camps including (a) those who think the goal is to scale up food production to meet industrial food’s demands and (b) those who firmly believe that food is itself an antidote to scaling up, and (c/d) those who want to keep industrial food functioning and participating in local food production even as they work on alternatives and so on. The development of multiple systems may be best explained in the 2 Loops Theory of the Berkana Institute which I have written about previously that describes those roles to be played.

Also, whenever scale comes up, I think of this from Wendell Berry:

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.”

In other words, scale itself needn’t be the enemy; rightness of scale allows us to still pay attention to details, to measure how we do good to one another.

How do we find that rightness of scale?

Writer Ihnji Jon outlined a scale of political action that can serve either ever-expanding (globalized) or ever-narrowing (localized) as long as they are:

1) “subject to territorial conditions”,

2)”posses a degree of intensity that allows it to be influential across different systems”,

3) “are large enough to retain complexity that allows them to have interaction effects”

So as we think about farmers markets and community food systems, the right scale would keep the food system leaders able to pressure government to deal with the underlying issues, would encourage funding for localized active, inclusive democratic networks, would support communities to rebuild as slowly or quickly as they need and use local leadership in doing so, and most importantly would democratize all of the resources needed to create the new adapted normal. That would mean resiliency would be properly supported by functioning systems and would measure its spread as an opportunity to make real changes in that place, rather than celebrating it as a solution.

That could mean radically changing the emergency food system to reduce the bureaucracy of getting support when needed and increasing actual mutual aid, it could mean working to become the true center of inclusive civic spaces, it could mean engaging with the educational system to link regional food to childhood health, it could mean that regional climate initiatives become focused on food production and in championing the stewardship of local people…

All of that is possible, even if it is not yet probable. I hope to begin to outline examples of systemic thinking and scaled planning among farmers markets and their regional food system efforts on this site in 2022. Please share those you know about in the comments.

and lastly, I hope each of you takes some time the rest of this year to replenish your own reserves. Please do consider how you can engage with your community in ways that reduce the need for the reservoir of your resiliency to be emptied in each crisis and that increase your joy in the lovely way each of you does good to others in farmers market spaces.

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Hitching your market’s wagon to a star

“Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labour, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing”

Emerson wrote those words in his American Civilization anti-slavery essay in 1856 for The Atlantic exhorting his fellow citizens to see how they could link their own beliefs to the forces around them, thereby maximizing their own impact and also reducing their own load. By often stressing the idea that one is not free until all are free (“where the position of the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black woman”, “Let every man say then to himself—the cause of the Indian, it is mine; the cause of the slave, it is mine.”) he was illuminating how we can travel together through “the vehicle of ideas, “borrowing their “omnipotence.”

This has been on my mind a great deal lately. Partly because the exhaustion and stress in market managers’ voices are even more palpable this year than previous ones, and also because big issues are lighting up the sky all around our markets. On the first, know that I (and many others) worry about you and your vendors, and hope you find ways to de-stress after market day, and still find momentary joy in the work. My organization, Farmers Market Coalition is working daily to find ways to add support for operators and to amplify your work. Please do root around on the site and join us for our webinars and check out our new emerging Communities of Practice.

This post is attempting to respond to the second, meaning those big issues we are seeing around us. But keep that first in mind: people are pulling for you, do see you, do know the tension and self-doubt that come along with that market map and bell…

If you have read this blog, you know that I believe the best way to make the market operator position work over the long term is (a) by making the “invisible” work more visible to the market’s stakeholders and (b) by reducing as many of the operational silos that exist and that keep the one or two-person market operation in a constant state of crisis and burnout. I think the one thing we cannot do – assuming this pandemic has a complete endpoint – is to count on “fully normal” returning. It is what so many of us who managed markets through a disaster learned at some point: that some of the changes that seem temporary are in fact permanent, that more change is still coming and not all of it will be welcome.

“Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote,—justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.” – Emerson

In terms of the activities happening in North America in the last few years on our public streets and squares, market operators can happily accomplish so much more by following Emerson’s advice. Because by adding those outcomes to the market’s long term goals, we can hitch up with other fellow organizers and even lean on their skills and energy and leadership.

Black Lives Matter. Climate Change. Immigration Reform are some of the issues that can be easily brought into market work. And even though those issues can inflame some of your community members who have yet to consider how they can be an agent of positive change on them, those issues also inspire countless others. When markets embrace these ideas as their goals, it tells your community that this market is interested in the overall quality of life for its entire community, and plans to be around for a while, striving to do more and do it better. There is no better way to increase your stakeholders than by sending that type of message.

That has been the promise around the mechanism of markets from 1970 on: to be an engine for system change for our producers, for our visitors, and for our neighbors. The histories of the earliest back-to-land markets make it clear it was never about adding back the old-style public markets. Those had often stopped being useful for their local farmers long before, and the limitation of the daily sales metrics as the only measure meant those outlets were easily replaced by newer forms of the same type of extractive capitalism that championed the middleman and centralized distribution even more successfully than public markets in order to “reduce inefficiencies”. (Don’t get me started on “efficiency” as a b.s. measurement for food. Its come up lately and so this link is one I use often to urge my peers to read about one idea on how to move away from it. )

In contrast, the lofty goals of the more recent farmers market movement indicate that big outcomes are our promise, presented via different structures and values. If we agree that is so, then justice and equity for all have surely always been part of it. It just needs a wider set of stakeholders and the right set of specific system goals to make it happen.

We have moved the dial for some short-term outcomes, such as altering the narrative around local, building the lexicon around sustainable farming, encouraging sophisticated placemaking strategies, and even slightly increasing food access through our work. We are allowed to be proud of what we have done so far, especially if we also acknowledge that we have not yet met our systemic goals. That’s okay- no one expected us to do it all in one generation, or two, or even three.

I am reminded of the story an organizer told me about a small Asian country that had committed to becoming completely free of violence – but wait for it – in 1000 years. That deadline frees the activist from their ego, and also reminds them that each step to that goal is worthy. Or you can use the oft-repeated Chinese proverb: the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best? today.

Same idea: we do not have to DO EVERYTHING today; we just need to start.

When we become better allies by naming and challenging the racism built into every part of the dominant industrial food system, it is easier to explain why we feel the need to offer an alternative that rests on new power structures and why it will take a lot of concerted strategies and iterations to create this new version. Organizers today can start with piloting equitable market and land access, introducing educational materials that work for a diverse set of leaders, (made by a diverse set of leaders, centering those BIPOC voices still unheard in most food system work) about the potential in expanding civic engagement via direct relationships, and maybe also find some time to measure success, ie. wealth in new ways. And by listening.

Recently a colleague suggested to me that reparations could begin with some market organizers using their application system to allow in new BIPOC – led farms without fees, (or through offering in-kind marketing support, or through free or reduced costs for training as many NGOs like NOFA-VT are offering BIPOC farmers.) I was stunned at the elegance of that one idea, of how contextual and agile it is. It shows how a small group can engage with a huge issue and still get positive impacts that matter today.

Another example is that markets can easily begin to shift the power dynamic that exists in the market rules around land ownership to more strongly encourage cooperative farming.

In both cases not only does the market become better allies to the BIPOC movement that has embraced innovative farming practices and alternative collaborative ownership models, but they add vendors who have new skills, experience and resiliency.

Climate change is pretty easy to see as an issue for markets, but yet few embrace it at the system level (Got give a shout out to aptly-named Post-Oil Solutions in Brattleboro VT which manages the winter market). We are right ON IT when the fires come and farmers are forced to move their livestock hundreds of miles overnight, or entire bee colonies are burned out, or markets need to set up closer to the need to get the new disaster SNAP dollars flowing, but where are we when our cities and regions are negotiating climate agreements? What about energy policy? And clearly, this is one arena where young activists have taken center stage, so it might be time to invite that local teenaged climate change activist into the advisory group.

And immigration reform is a shockingly absent topic in the food sector, even though newly arrived residents are overwhelmingly the people who hold the dominant system together. And let’s be clear: our alternative food system often utilizes that same farmworker structure, sometimes with very little transparency or equity in terms of profit-sharing or benefits. Markets are the outlet that every resident arriving from other places recognizes and yet few have found their way into them as vendors, much less as shoppers or as organizers. We have to challenge ourselves to understand why that is so and linking to the work being done on this issue is a good first step. And by listening.

In any case, I expect a bunch of you are shouting at me from your nook, “yeah those are great ideas, but HOW CAN I DO THAT AND ALSO GET THE DOZEN YARD SIGNS UP AND CALL ALL OF MY VENDORS AND COUNT TOKENS…”

Well the answer is you can’t.

Another story: a pal was telling me once about her partner who had no desire for children but, being from a large Italian family, seemed to miss the large group dynamic when they sat to make family decisions. My pal said to me humorously, “I feel like I need to get her a baseball team to come and sit in our household chats. She needs the give and take that I just cannot offer on my own!”

That is also what a market manager needs: a team. And I don’t want to hear how hard it is to manage that team either: if you want to manage a market well, get better at handing work off. It’s a non-negotiable of a successful market. Adding informal advisory groups so that your circle of leaders is wider and more inclusive is one way to do just that. As a market leader, I devised a handout postcard that invited people to join us at the next 2 monthly meetings for whatever project I was thinking that person in front of me could be helpful on. I had them in my market bag to scribble the name of the project and the time and date of the meeting on to hand over, and also had a few with stamps affixed to address and send out. Those informal advisory groups met as needed, offered unvarnished advice as they saw fit, and were not tied to any long term commitment. I was also under no formal mandate to take all of the advice I was given, but I got a lot of help that I did take. And for those of you in small places without a lot of people around, the modern world of connectivity being more available allows this to be done through online platforms.

In other words, not only will the work that you do be more fun and less taxing if you find the right star to hitch to, but it will reduce the sidelining of markets and alternative food systems as precious or as elitist. During COVID-19, the difficulty in getting markets deemed as essential or allowing all types of market vendors to vend in many states (even though other outlets were not held to the same constraints) shows how directly markets would be aided by having these system-level support systems.

I’ll leave you with Emerson’s conclusion that speaks directly to the excellent work each of your communities is engaged in:

“…when I see how much each virtuous and gifted person, whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue and in the symmetry and force of their qualities,—I see what cubic values America has, and in these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous wealth.”

Update

This Food X Design podcast from @IDEO explains why the food system is inequitable by design, why language matters, and how agency is key to creating new food systems that work for BIPOC. #FoodByDesign was created by @scodraro and @sandiddy.
https://page.ideo.com/food-podcast-8

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Systemic Change is our Shared Goal

In thousands of public actions, organizers and citizens are taking to the streets to demand transparency and community control over their police, and an acknowledgement of the structural racism that is built into every system that governs modern life, a structure that restricts black Americans and other people of color from participation in the economy, in civic decisions, and severely limits access to assets required to live a full, happy life.

But by dint of the work we chose, we get to do much more than that. By choosing to expand the role of local communities through mechanisms such as farmers markets, our intention to be part of a new equitable, community-led and transparent system is in the right place, even if the outcomes are still not where we want them to be. Because of that, farmers market leaders must vociferously acknowledge the rights of Americans to use public space for achieving equity for black lives and to clarify to their communities that the goal of our work is about building new systems rather than just propping up the old.

The 2 loops theory below is one way to describe the type of sweeping changes we are working towards, and even shows some of the steps:

When structural changes are the goal, it is important to know how living systems begin as networks, shift to intentional communities of practice, and can evolve into powerful systems capable of global influence. And that we live with the “old” and the “new” as it happens and that the existence of both at one time is often a point of tension but also allows us to free ourselves from worrying about achieving it all at once.

The process outlined in this video can assist farmers market leaders in understanding how to keep their goals to what is truly transformative.

As food leader Leah Penniman has outlined, education, reparations, and amplification are the strategies necessary for anti-racism work and as allies, we can lead in our own communities to expand those. This start (via the networks and CoP steps outlined above) requires that we shift from the white-led organizations that populate our work to one with diverse leadership, valuing both lived and professional experience, with information flowing back and forth between communities of practices within a new system for our markets and community food outlets to operate. (Please look for upcoming posts around what I find to share what farmers market operators are doing or can do in the anti-racism work that Ms. Penniman has helpfully outlined.)

So I hope that actual structural change and plans for that change are the point of your organization’s (or work’s) theory of change. Start by acknowledging that most DTC leadership (such as my own employer Farmers Market Coalition) are still overwhelmingly white with little or no first-hand knowledge or personal experience in the daily reality of our black neighbors. That lack of experience and therefore of true understanding leads to many lost opportunities in our work including addressing the rapidly decreasing number of African-American farmers. Too often – far too often – the only way that DTC outlets address the racial inequities present in their spaces is by working on access for underserved and at-risk populations, by assuming that successful SNAP programs will accomplish what needs to be done. Don’t take that wrong- the work we have done in DTC outlets to increase access is tremendous work, but we have much more to do to attack the larger inequities that keep the old system purring right along.

I personally commit to full support of these goals by more actively working to eradicate the unacknowledged and unchallenged racism in our present system and to achieve my mid-term work goal to step down from holding leadership positions in order to become a better ally in the new system. And to openly share the knowledge and contacts I have collected over the years with the emerging diverse pool of leaders that represent the new wave of our work.

What are the organizational and the personal choices you will make to grow the networks and the new system? What uncomfortable truths will you commit to amplifying to your community to educate them to begin to shift power and assets to the black community?

I look forward to hearing more from many of you about your work in system change and how I can learn from it.

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2020: The Scale of Cooperation

Dear colleagues,

It is time for my end of the year post that I hope will encourage, appreciate, and yet challenge us in our work to build farmers markets. Do know that my posts here are separate from my role at FMC, although I hope align with my work as Training and Technical Assistance Director. In that vein, the advice I give below is all predicated on the need for sustained capacity for market operators (the kind that FMC is poised to give, starting in 2020. To make it work, markets will need to consider issues like these.

This article is worth starting with:

View at Medium.com

I think it’s an important piece. Whether you think this writer has it all figured out, what is absolutely true is that most farmers – even market farmers – cannot continue as they have been, and market operators must understand and react accordingly. He is certainly saying an extraordinary thing for any small business owner: we have to cooperate with each other in order to survive. So how do producers do that within the framework of the DTC capitalist system and how do markets reinvent themselves to encourage this? Maybe we start by appreciating the boldness of this approach by our farmers.

So here is my TL:DR for 2020: Scale up Cooperation

My most well-traveled 2019 pocket quote from Wendell Berry may help too:

“it is a formidable paradox that in order to achieve the sort of limitless that we have begun to call sustainability…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 or local 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 quote covers farmers markets or even the future of small farms and aligns with Berry’s point about not outdistancing local knowledge or affection.

It is undeniable true that the emergence of the modern farmers market movement in the 1970s has been one of the few bright spots for farmers, including highlighting the role of the community farmer as leader, increasing cohesion between rural and urban populations, showing the success of civic engagement strategies for public health outcomes which now include regional farm items in their delivery, and actualizing the promise of regional economies to municipal leaders. However, these outcomes fall almost entirely under the first strategy, community support. So what about the other two: retail know-how, and market day analysis?

What do market operators know now about retail, specifically food retail, that can assist our small businesses, especially cooperatives? How does the current trend of fragmentation and the increased consolidation of food outlets help or hurt DTC channels and their producers? For example, this week I wrote on FB about the closure of a local specialty store in New Orleans that had dedicated itself to local growers; it has even received a NYT article about its work! So what went wrong then?

What do we know about market day analysis in terms of production and in light of growing concern around climate disruptions? What do we do about inauthentic claims by non-DTC operators of local or small? How will the emerging models for small-scaled agriculture help in the face of these pressures?

The future of market vending clearly relies on policy changes, encouraging meaningful innovation, and a diversity of approaches for DTC channels that can quickly respond to internal and external pressures. Some examples of what I mean:

•I hope we all agree that farmers market success cannot be based on solutions that live forever outside of the policy arena, as it then punishes farmers who want to expand their business into more DTC outlets, or want to bridge the emerging alternative food economy and the dominant industrial system by selling to both. I bring this up as GAP/GHP, expanding cottage food laws, and even more so, emerging “food-sovereign towns” or “food freedom” laws in some states are so new that most market operators are not aware of their impacts or how to interact with them at this point. The patchwork of laws surrounding production of food surely affects small farmers selling through any outlet and puts the onus on them to figure out where to go next, which means their decision is often based on the least bureaucratic path, rather than what is best for that business. The question is how can market operators help? What is their role in order to enact better policies for production and for more channels to succeed?

• Market farmer success cannot be based on a solution that requires profitable producers to have no short-term debt as that also reduces their innovation. Note that I said requires; I am not advocating for DTC farmers to add debt, but the lack of debt cannot also be entirely seen as the solution. As we rightly highlight the Census data indicates that DTC farmers stay in business longer and have less debt due to less need for large-scaled equipment and other inputs, market operators should be able to encourage DTC farmers to keep exploring appropriate technology. To do so, they need sustained profits to offset those investments and the space to test those innovations. What analysis, new partnerships or open-source technology would help?

• Market success cannot be only based on government voucher or SNAP programs as a conduit for new shoppers to enter the system. These systems are now being brilliantly piloted at many markets but can become political footballs with ebbs and flows of funding and support, and are still in testing mode only. Yet, the piloting of these efforts and the balance of currencies and users at markets are in itself a model for a type of inclusion; in a country that increasingly has two systems for rich and poor in almost every sector of society, the farmers market field is diligently working to bring a majority of socioeconomic strata to the same place each week, which increases shared experiences and outcomes. For all of these reasons, this work must be expanded so more at-risk populations get to their town squares to use their benefits and find long-term health strategies, but even so, higher program redemptions cannot be the single goal of any market.

• Food justice is an energy that is lifting all boats in our food work yet many established markets are still unaware of how to cooperate with these activists and communities. Even while we see increased use of markets by shoppers who are people of color, it is often only through benefit programs reach, therefore perpetuating a specific type of tokenism around institutional racism. Especially since it is rare to find sustained or network-level efforts in creating space for producers of color to these same markets. Cooperatives will certainly help land-challenged farmers get to market level.

If you accept that modern farmers markets goals are transparency and curating direct relationships in order to affect changes in land use, in defining the type and paths to economic stability, and in decreasing isolation, then the next step might be to see how this mechanism can do more to help producers beyond its current primary version with the family table shopper. For example, what is the solution to what some call “too many markets”? I gave it my best shot in a 4-part post for FMC, found here. In short, using the transparency and relationship building of farmers markets to build other type of curated transactions, such as intermediary shopper markets where the organization could curate relationships with specialty stores and restaurants and create the same type of purchasing transformation that has happened with family table shoppers at current markets. In many cases, these purchases are still pushing farmers back to an uneven and unfair relationship. Here is an anecdote that I shared in an earlier post:

An example of the type of information that could help a market manager is a discussion I once had with a vendor who had stopped selling to chefs after being a favorite for many years. When I came behind the table and sat down at a quiet moment to have him tell me what was up, this is what he said:

You see, what happens is at the Saturday market, Chef (from fancy restaurant & supportive guy) comes by and asks me if I can sell him some of my crop this week; he wants to do a big dinner and give me some publicity. So he tells me to call him first thing Monday morning. I go out to harvest, come in around 10 and call him. The kitchen answers and tell me he is running late, but to call back in an hour. In the meantime, the deadline for the Tuesday market is coming and so I call you and tell you I am not sure if I am coming tomorrow but will confirm before the afternoon. (As you know, that market has been a little slow lately as it is this time of year so if I can sell it all to one place quickly I’d prefer it this week.) I wait an hour and call the chef back; they tell me I just missed him and he is in a waiters meeting but told them to tell me he will call me immediately after. You call me back about coming to market but I have no answer so I don’t answer when you call. Finally, he calls me, still enthusiastic about the crop but tells me regretfully the numbers for the dinner are lower than expected so he can only buy 1/2 of what he thought. That means I have to drop off 1/2 and could bring a little to the market now. Or should I call another chef to sell the rest? I still haven’t called you to confirm one way or another, so I finally decide to call you to tell you I am not coming even though I’d have a little to sell; you are not pleased of course.

I finally decided the stress compared to the sales were not worth it.

Now this is only one vendor’s story and there are differing situations of every hue to uncover about each market. The point is to know exactly how each of your small businesses are doing, with which shoppers and with which outlets. And to know the demographics of your area to know how you can add shoppers to that group. That takes time and support from your board and vendors.

Or, another example of how for market operators to be paid to train and support other channels more directly. Something along these lines is already happening with the FINI work where market operators are in (passive) partnership with small grocery stores to expand incentivizing SNAP for healthy food purchasing; let’s hope the learning on both types of outlets will be shared equally. Or market operators could be paid by investors to assist farmers with aggregation hubs or in designing specialty store purchasing programs. Or market operators could be offered funding to manage databases of all direct marketing farmers so that in times of disaster, they become the point people for recovery. The likely answer relies on markets showing they are willing to cooperate an d to understand production issues.

The outcomes Newman lists in his article also would benefit markets:

- - Costs of production would decrease significantly. Orders of seed, feed, equipment, and supplies would no longer just be in bulk, they’d be at regional scale. Labor hours would be reduced as dozens of farmers are no longer replicating the same tasks (e.g. purchasing, bookkeeping, inventory, etc.)
  - Marketshare would swell. Owing to lower prices, larger quantities, and more accessible markets (B&M and delivery), we’d be able to service a much larger segment of the market. Increases in volume would reduce overhead costs, more than offsetting the reduction in each unit’s top-line*
  - Wages and quality of life for farmers would rise in real terms. The confluence of reduced production costs, cooperative labor, and increased marketshare will mean individual farmers are working less and getting paid more. We’d actually be able to enjoy creature comforts of other industries like evenings and weekends off, PTO, group health insurance, even retirement.
  - The barriers to entry for new farmers would be much lower. New farmers would not have to learn to be entrepreneurs, marketers, agritourism experts, and social media mavens in order to make it work. A farmer could actually make a living as a trade journeymxn, just like any other trade, and brand new farmers could be trained by the co-op itself. On a related note…
  - Sustainable farming could be de-gentrified, since it would no longer be a “labor of love” only available to people that can afford to work for free or next to nothing (i.e. afford to be exploited, which is a bad thing even if they don’t seem to mind very much). Everyone — people of color in particular — would be able to look at farming as a viable career choice.
  - Farmers could follow their passions instead of diversifying. The co-op has producers of livestock, produce, fruit, mushrooms, grain, dairy, flowers, etc. Ecological diversity is managed at the co-op/landscape level rather than the level of the individual producer, so the latter can focus on what they do best, still make a living, and still operate within an ecologically-restorative framework.
  - Farmers could operate at the scale they choose. If someone just wants to grow microgreens in their basement and sell them into the co-op’s single payer market, so be it. If they want to range a cattle herd followed by sheep and chickens across a few hundred acres leased or owned by the co-op, go for it. The only constraint is that the producer must follow the co-op’s production standards.

so for 2020, I agree with Newman and many others that the idea of a cooperative future for small farmers seems key to expanding the reach of the markets and in achieving better support for those vital to each and every market: farmers. Yet many markets have rules that restrict this activity, and many states and municipalities do not understand the role of cooperatives. The author said it very well:

The point is, these farmers would no longer be alone. We’d present a united farmer-owned (this is key) interface to the rest of the world — suppliers, customers, landlords, regulators, media, etc. — that, at present, each farmer is left alone to handle. It’s that isolation that makes us weak and ineffective against incredibly well-resourced competition.

We have to evolve if we’re going to survive.

So let’s cooperate.

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Green City Blue Lake

A story that I wrote about Cleveland’s attempt to consider its post-industrial future on the Wallace Center’s Food System Leadership Network* site. The main point to consider is how farmers market leaders choose to interact with municipalities working on green solutions. If DTC organizers are not at the table, how will their needs be known?

*I strongly recommend that anyone involved in food system work joins the FSLN site.

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The future? It can be.

What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like? The Intercept presents a film narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and illustrated by Molly Crabapple.

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