farmers markets

2016 SNAP retailer report

Fascinating.
 This is from the 2016 SNAP retailer data report from USDA/FNS, found here. This is the kind of data that we need to pore over and gather data at the market level to compare and contrast.
Some quick data and my thoughts:
• 53 percent of the 366,972 households that shopped at a farmers’ market or direct marketing farmer made one purchase; another 18 percent made two purchases; and 29 percent made three or more purchases within the year. These percentages have remained relatively unchanged over the last five fiscal years.
So 53% only made a single purchase using their benefit card… This may correspond with the analysis from my 2013 VT Market Currency report that markets were then using a whole bunch of money and time to attract shoppers who are either at the end of their time on the SNAP rolls, or are new to SNAP and need more assistance in using their benefits, or that markets have not yet made enough changes to be welcoming for that shopping base to use their benefits at markets. So this data should be crunched with what part of that 53% has been enrolled on SNAP for ___ period of months.
The other way we should analyze this would be compared to our cash/credit shoppers too, which means we need to collect that data too in the same way. That is the kind of comparison that would tell us what the best initial strategy is for SNAP shoppers.

• In fiscal year 2016, program recipients made 1,095,107 purchases at farmers’ markets and direct marketing farmers nationwide. The average purchase amount was $18.60.•

Almost 1.1 million purchases has a nice ring to it. Of course so does 10 million.That would be a great goal for the market field: 10,000,000 purchases at markets and with dmfs in a single FY by 2019. Sometimes the obsession over only measuring total dollar amount spent limits the strategy for increasing actual uses of benefits in ways that are more useful in retail terms…

•  366,972 SNAP households made at least one purchase at a farmers’ market in fiscal year 2016. Households shopping at farmers’ markets spent $55.51 on average over the course of the year.

 • More SNAP benefits were redeemed at farmers’ markets and direct marketing farmers in fiscal year 2016 during August than any other month of the year.

 

Some of this data needs to be released per state, as the August spike is likely not true in the Southern states. It’d also be great to see here which week or days of the month it spiked as well.

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Helen Hill

Today is the sad anniversary of organizer/writer/filmmaker Helen Hill’s murder. New Orleanians, Canadians, South Carolinians, Californians and a slew of other oddballs and creative types are thinking of our dear Helen today.

Helen was daughter, sister,  mother, wife, friend. Her murder sent shock waves through dozens of communities that many will never recover from, partly because there was not a more loving or angelic human (although with a sensible streak of mischief when needed) than Helen. Partly because in true New Orleans fashion, the police never even turned up a suspect. Partly because her work was stopped, work so important that it has since been added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.

Helen and her husband Paul came to me because of food, so that’s why this is here. I became active in the local Food Not Bombs actions which they had helped to “organize” or more appropriately, to encourage.  I had many fascinating conversations with them about tactics we might employ to be able to wrest food scraps from stores, including from Whole Foods. That conversation was ongoing because I worked there part-time, along with my other then part-time job at the farmers market. (That’s not as odd as it seems now because that WF location’s beginning actually predates the Austin behemeth’s ownership, back when it had been a New Orleans-only coop called Whole Foods Company. Even after the corporation bought it, it remained a funky local treasure, so my working there and at the market at the same time for a short time was not that farfetched.)

Their vegan potlucks were legendary, as were her vegan tea parties. Paul and Helen also knew my market boss, fellow vegetarian activist Richard McCarthy, and through him had begun to bring their pig Rosie to our market events. I remember once Helen called me before a scheduled visit to ask details as to where Rosie would be set up; turns out she was worried that Rosie would be within sight of meat vendors and would be distressed. I was at first amused, thinking she was slightly joking, but of course she was not. Sobering up, I assured her that every precaution would be taken for Rosie to be happy and comfortable that day. Forever after, Helen treated me as Rosie’s protector.

I was thrilled like many others when news came of their return to New Orleans after Katrina. Helen had asked many to send postcards to Paul to convince him to return. Happily, he did; sadly, that return was so very short.

This link is to a film Helen made for Rosie about her genealogy. This one is about the life of chickens, a motif  she often used  in her art.

From her award-winning film Scratch and Crow:

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There are dozens and dozens of tributes to Helen, but viewing her films and hearing about her Poppy growing up under the wise and gentle hand of his father is the tribute she’d like  most of all. So please enjoy and share her lovely films whenever possible.

 

 

 

 

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Winter/Spring 2017 FM Conferences

This is the best list that I could muster from researching online for a few hours. It only includes published events that have a specific farmers market management track or focus as described in their materials.  If your meeting meets that criteria,  is not listed and will be held before May 2017, email me at dar wolnik at gmail.

Missouri FM Association: January 20, 21 • St. Louis
Arkansas Farmers Market Association 2017 Annual Meeting:  January 20 • Little Rock
Wisconsin Farmers Market Association Conference: Jan 22 – Jan 24: Wisconsin Dells
Maine Farmers’ Market Convention: January 29 •Hinckley
Washington State FM Association: Feb 2-4 • Blaine
Pick TN: February 16 – 18 • Franklin Tennessee
Oregon Small Farms Conference: Saturday, February 18 • Corvallis
Oklahoma FM and Agritourism Conference: February 23 • Oklahoma City
2017 Alaska FM Conference: MARCH 2-4 • Homer
2017 Ohio Farmers’ Market Conference: March 2 and 3 • Dublin

British Columbia FM Association: March 3-5 • New Westminster

2017 Michigan Farmers Market Conference: March 7 and March 8 • East Lansing

2017 KANSAS :Farmers’ Market Conference: March 16 and March 17 • Wichita
Colorado FM Association Annual Meeting: MARCH 17 and MARCH 18• Longmont
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One business shares a gratitude index

In what has to be the most common topic in this blog for 2016, I offer another illustration of how data collection can be simply managed, yet offer meaningful data for a wide variety of audiences.
The elegant metrics from a small value-added business in Charlottesville VA are below. It seems important to note that Stacy was my comrade for the original creation of the FMC Farmers Market Metrics work (and FMC’s founding executive director before our current excellent Jen Cheek) , and did a incredible consulting  job in 2016 assisting FMC with metric refinement, data collection research and devising the workbooks that are at the core of the FMM program. Those tasks are in addition to what the output shows in the metrics below, her devotion to fitness as a student and a leader and (along with her ever cheerful husband Joe) raising their energetic son.

2016 was good phyte foods’ first full calendar year of operation, after our first humble sale at Charlottesville City Market in May 2015. Since January this year, the business has made from scratch and sold 57,024 crackers, 1,003 bars, 157 pounds of granola, 978 pumpkin muffins, 533 kale cookies, and a motley assortment of odd-looking experimental snacks. In so doing, we have bought sustainably grown (and often certified organic) vegetables and herbs from at least twelve farms² in Central Virginia. We are grateful not only to our loyal and patient customers at City Market, but to our enduring local partners at The Juice Laundry, Random Row Brewing, Blue Ridge Country Store, and ACAC Downtown. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It is a humbling honor to be part of this evolving local food economy.

And for those who think cottage industry producers only care about their own cash flow:

In the coming year, we want to expand our reach to more retail partners, reinvest in new equipment, train some cracker apprentices, experiment with early summer cracker flavors, and give back to community organizations that are helping kids eat more vegetables. I have recently been appointed to the Advisory Council of the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, which, among other things, teaches children of limited economic means how to grow, use, and appreciate fresh organic vegetables.

Go Stacy Miller; Keep the goodphyte going.

Source: getting specific: gratitude counts in our 2016 index

Health issues topped the list of scientific studies reaching wide audiences in 2016

In general, health-related studies… had more reach on social media and other online platforms than other scientific studies. Seven of the top 11 most-discussed scientific studies for the year focused on health, as did fully 59 of the top 100. Together, these studies covered a wide spectrum of health-related subjects.

The second-most-discussed health article after the one by Obama was about the prevalence of hospital medical errors, a problem the authors determined was the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

The fifth ranked article was a historical analysis claiming the sugar industry had sponsored research dating back to the 1950s aimed at downplaying the possible links between sucrose and coronary heart disease.

 ft_most-read-journal

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Hark!

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Dear Market community,

The work that all of you do to offer physical comfort as well to create deeper connections may not be noted every week but I hope that you are sure that it results in great things. Those great things revolve around the market’s vital role as the town square which we talk about often on this blog but still may take in stride too easily. No matter how you feel about recent events, it is clear that democracy is in fragile shape. What too many Americans think of as their only duty as citizens begins and ends on election day; After that is done, the other activity is focused on name-calling and silly memes on social media. If that is the sum of one’s civic engagement, the result is often naive cynicism, an unhealthy view of others and a further tearing of the fabric of democracy.

How else can we help democracy prosper but by thoroughly shaking out and airing ones citizenship in public regularly? And when we talk about doing this in public, we cannot mean those narrow retail aisles where one or two corporations have decided that only some are welcome,  valued mostly by the largeness of their purchases. In these restricted places, too many of our neighbors are left out. Those neighbors need to be allowed in AND allowed to find real ways to engage as citizens too.

Because citizenship is not the same as consumerism, even though many confuse the two.

Or as Wendell Berry says, “I think an economy should be based on thrift, on taking care of things, not on theft, usury, seduction, waste, and ruin.”

In answer to that, you’ve designed markets to not only be about the buying and selling of well-made thrifty items, but also about the sharing of ideas and talents used for the safeguarding of our shared and precious resources; an economy of taking care of things and of each other.

That makes you the mayors and leading citizens of your village, creating an town square of good, busily entertaining strangers who may be some of those angels unaware.

So here’s to your health in the New Year to able to do even more of it.

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Book review: The Invention of Tradition

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I find this to be a fascinating subject. The traditions that we follow offer clues as to which tribe we want to join or those to which we already belong; they also indicate which authorities we follow.

As pointed out in the excellent introduction, tradition is a different matter than customs. Tradition is what has become unvaried or fixed, while customs “serve the double function of motor and fly-wheel.” Customs have more to do with the delicate give and take of civil society, and can become tradition and often do. For example, the author points out that much of what judges do is included under customs, but what they wear is tradition.

This collection covers some great examples of invented traditions from different colonial systems, the British monarchy and the European industrial age after 1870 to the start of World War 1. The term invented tradition in this book includes those constructed to assert authority or dominance, and those that simply emerged over a brief period of time. With those definitions, one can easily see how knowing how to untangle which is which (and devised by whom) is vital before adopting or defending them.  For example, it seems that recently the singing of the national anthem has become a place of protest at sporting events. While writing about the issue, many reporters began to examine this tradition and found it only became the custom around WW2,  with the song itself protested by citizens from its adoption as our anthem in 1931. Even Jackie Robinson wrote of his inability to stand and sing the song in his 1972 autobiography.  No matter how one feels about the protesting, one can see how it has been hardened into tradition that is now so dearly held by some that the flouting of it is seen as an unpatriotic act.

Upon investigation, it may  turn out that some of these dearly held traditions began from pure myth or even from the cooptation of another culture. But knowing which invented traditions are problematic may be difficult to uncover and in many cases,  may not really matter.  After all,  all traditions are manufactured by people and their meanings changing with the times.

In terms of community food systems, it seems to me that its invented tradition and customs should be at least understood before adopting. The adoption of some customs (old-timey signage for example) may presume an allegiance to a past that not everyone is excited about repeating or even remembers. Or the tradition of Saturday morning markets meant a smaller audience for our farmers than the modern world could offer us, yet still felt appropriate for the first founders to honor it by adopting it. Since then, by acknowledging that tradition and finding ways to pay homage without being wedded to it, the market field has vastly expanded its number of days and therefore its reach. Another example may be the traditional audience of the farmers market field: in almost all cases, our markets serve family tables and not larger entities. Could we invent a new tradition where we use the  weekly open-air market model to build another that serves intermediate and wholesale customers exclusively? As long as we made sure to  build transparency and  payment options for bulk purchasers, restaurant, grocery and wholesale customers couldn’t  the market serve the same role as curator and connector that it does in the traditional model?

In any case, installing meaningful traditions and customs into food system work is vital. After all, a generation is around 30 years in span;  this means that the kids and grandkids of the original visitors and farmers are using this new tradition of markets, and assuming the customs and routines of it. The more that those traditions are made to fit the values of the people that are using them, the more that we can clearly indicate the role we want the places of good food to play in civil society.

Book availability

 

 

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SNAP Update:  “Twinkies can no longer be considered bread”

      “I’m disappointed that the rules don’t go as far as what was proposed early this year,” said Danielle Nierenberg, president of Food Tank, a nutrition advocacy group. “USDA has missed an opportunity to increase the availability of and access to healthier foods for low-income Americans.”

The earlier proposals also recommended leaving food with multiple ingredients like frozen pizza or canned soup off the staple list. The outcome is a win for the makers of such products, like General Mills Inc. and Campbell Soup Co., which feared they would lose shelf space as retailers added new items to meet the requirements.

But retailers still criticized the new guidelines as too restrictive. Stores must now stock seven varieties of staples in each food category: meat, bread, dairy, and fruits and vegetables….

…More changes to the food-stamp program may lie ahead. The new rules were published a day after the House Committee on Agriculture released a report* calling for major changes to the program, which Republicans on the committee say discourages recipients from finding better-paid work.

Source: Regulators Tweak SNAP Rules for Grocers – WSJ

*Some of the findings from the 2016 Committee on Agriculture Report “Past, Present, and Future of SNAP” are below.

    • Program participation nearly doubled (up 81 percent from FY 2007 to FY 2013) as a result of the recent recession. In an average month in FY 2007, 26.3 million people (or about 9 percent of the U.S. population) were enrolled in SNAP. That increased to 47.6 million people (or about 15 percent of the U.S. population) in FY 2013, owing to the fact that the economy was slow to recover and many families remained reliant on SNAP. Even now, with a 4.6 percent unemployment rate (compared to a 9.6 percent unemployment rate for 2010), there were still 43.4 million SNAP participants as of July 2016.
    • SNAP is now a catchall for individuals and families who receive no or lower benefits from other welfare programs, largely because the eligibility criteria in SNAP are relatively more relaxed. As a result, the net effect has been to increase SNAP enrollment. For example, in the welfare reforms of 1996, the cash welfare program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was converted into a block grant known as TANF, which has rather rigorous work and activity requirements and includes a time limit. Another program available to those who are laid off from work is Unemployment Insurance (UI). These benefits require individuals to have a work history and to be fired through no fault of their own to be eligible for assistance. UI benefits are also time-limited, typically lasting six months. A third program, Federal disability benefits, requires individuals to prove they are unable to work. For many families who have not collected SNAP in the past, SNAP is now a default option for filling in the gaps.
    • USDA data shows that spending on SNAP remains three times what it was prior to the recession ($23.09 billion pre-recession average compared to $73.99 billion post-recession in FY 2015). However, SNAP spending is now projected to be significantly lower than it was estimated at passage of the 2014 Farm Bill.
    • For FY 2017, the maximum monthly benefit in the 48 contiguous states and DC is $194 for a one-person household, $357 for a two-person household, and $649 for a four-person household.17 In determining a household’s benefit, the net monthly income of the household is multiplied by 30 percent (because SNAP households are expected to spend 30 percent of their income on food), and the result is subtracted from the maximum benefit to determine the household’s benefit.
    • Seniors have the lowest rates of SNAP participation among eligible households of any demographic. While the low participation rate has a variety of causes, a prominent explanation is the stigma associated with SNAP and welfare in general. Many factors contribute to a lack of access to food among seniors, including a lack of a substantial income, the gap between Medicaid and the cost of living, limited income with specialized diets, and mental and physical illnesses.  The issues facing these populations must be viewed holistically, with SNAP as one piece of a larger solution to solving hunger for seniors.


According to research by the AARP Foundation—a charitable affiliate of AARP—over 17 percent of adults over the age of 40 are food-insecure. Among age cohorts over age 50, food insecurity was worse for the 50-59 age group, with over 10 percent experiencing either low or very low food security. Among the 60-69 age cohort, over 9 percent experienced similar levels of food insecurity, and over 6 percent among the 70+ population.

• The operation of the program is at the discretion of each state. For instance, in California, SNAP is a county-run program. In Texas, SNAP is administered by the state… Dr. Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute cited a specific example in New York City where SNAP, WIC, school food programs, and child and adult care programs are all administered by different agencies and the result is that each agency must determine eligibility and administer benefits separately.

K. Michael Conaway, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. Hearing of the House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture. Past, Present, and Future of SNAP. February 25, 2015. Washington, D.C.  Find report here

From CNN this week:

The number of people seeking emergency food assistance increased by an average of 2% in 2016, the United States Conference of Mayors said in its annual report Wednesday.

The majority, or 63%, of those seeking assistance were families, down from 67% a year ago, the survey found. However, the proportion of people who were employed and in need of food assistance rose sharply — increasing to 51% from 42%.

 

CNN Money report

 

Land & Power, Cultivating Food Justice

Panel at MSAN Ag Revival meeting

Ben Burkett Indian Springs Farmer, Federation of Southern Cooperatives leader

“Without owning land, we cannot have much justice. Yet, so many barriers to using that land remain.”

I was in a room recently with the Cargill boss and others like him. They think they make the wheels turn, but we make the wheels turn.”

Rukia Lumumba  Lawyer, back in state after being in NYC working with incarcerated youth. Daughter of late mayor of Jackson MS.  Leader of Cooperation Jackson. 

“The food justice movement cannot be separated from mass incarceration movement.We need good food to retain information, to think critically.”

If you eat healthier, you act healthier.”

“Question the fear we have for people of color, for poor people.”

Nia Umoja  Registered nurse by training. Leader of Cooperative Community of Near West Jackson

“If we are what we eat, what are you?”

We all have a equal right to a healthy diet. (We need a) backyard garden at every home.

I just want gardens everywhere.”

Patricia Cipolitti and Lupe Gonzalo, Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Most here are talking about small farming, but the part of the food business we work in is the huge agri-businesses part. We don’t even have access to land to grow food for ourselves.  We live with modern day slavery in the fields of Florida.We began to organize in the 1990s to force growers to take responsibility for the abuses we faced as farmworkers. To show growers that we had power. Yet, growers were saying that they had no power to change the conditions; therefore the organizing changed in 2000 to call on huge retailers who purchased those goods to make these changes. Taco Bell was the first retailer called on; many ridiculed our efforts, but the organizing grew and helped consumers understand their role in building power and making real changes in the lives of farmworkers. We now know we have the power of people, especially when collaborating with others like consumers.

We had 3 demands:

pay a penny more a pound for tomatoes to get more money back to farmworkers;

respect a human rights  code of conduct for farmworkers;

that the voice of workers would be respected in the field and retaliation against those who spoke out would not be allowed.

Fair Food agreement: 14 corporations are now on board; 90% of the Florida tomatoes picked are now part of that agreement.

Ricardo Salvador, Union of Concerned Scientists

500,000 members who advocate for the issues you have heard this morning. My team is 15 people and works in coalition to have impact on the research we do. (We call that the the Inside DC game.)

The outside DC game is  embodied in out HEAL Food Alliance, a social justice initiative.

We operate on the idea that there is a “Not a lack of food; there is a lack of democracy” (Lappe)

Lappe also points out that one can get lost in argument of which is more effective: To give a man to fish or teach a man to fish when the real issue is who owns the damn pond.

“US History is based on the destruction of the people who were here. The founders were hoping to establish a nice economic niche based on the extraction of resources. That is what we are facing today that use of someone else’s land and someone else’s labor to create wealth for only a few, rather than something for all of us.”

Facilitator: When we fight power, power changes and adapts. If we’re not vigilant, we will miss that adaptation. Be aware.

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No Piece of the Pie

From ACORN International organizer Wade Rathke:

The Food Chain Workers’ Alliance released an updated state of the industry report entitled “No Piece of the Pie,” and it’s not just sobering, it’s depressing, because even as employment is soaring in this critical industry, the workers are falling farther and farther behind. There is no way to separate the precariousness of the workforce from any final conclusions about food quality and safety.

The report’s executive summary speaks for itself and includes the following findings:

· Fourteen percent of the nation’s workforce is employed in the food chain, over one in seven of all workers in the U.S. The number of food chain workers grew by 13 percent from 2010 to 2016.
· The food chain pays the lowest hourly median wage to frontline workers compared to workers in all other industries. The annual median wage for food chain workers is $16,000 and the hourly median wage is $10, well below the median wages across all industries of $36,468 and $17.53.
· Thirteen percent of all food workers, nearly 2.8 million workers, relied on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (food stamps) to feed their household in 2016.
· Eight-two percent of food chain workers are in frontline positions with few opportunities at the top.
· For every dollar earned by white men working in the food chain, Latino men earn 76 cents, Black men 60 cents, Asian men 81 cents, and Native men 44 cents.1 White women earn less than half of their white male counterparts, at 47 cents to every dollar. Women of color face both a racial and a gender penalty: Black women earn 42 cents, Latina women 45 cents, Asian women 58 cents, and Native women 36 cents for every dollar earned by white men.
· Injuries are up and union protection is down.

 

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The work continues

Dear fellow activists and entrepreneurs.

If you read this blog, you are actively engaged in the growth of the alternative food system either by interest or by work. It means that you know the reality of small businesses and the struggle for long-term success by those businesses. It also means you are aware of the divide between rural and urban, of small and large population centers  in terms of access to resources and in understanding by the media or policy makers. Hopefully, everyone who reads this blog also agrees on the need for more places to discuss and work on those issues and others.

For me, the first place is public markets. That is because it is the best place to offer small businesses space, face-to-face peer time, and access to a wide variety of people to grow their ideas to fruition. Issues like resource depletion, social isolation and economic sovereignty are also on the minds of those who use markets as organizing tools.

As for those visitors, no purchase is necessary to attend a market. No one will be required to fill out an online database request to read our market materials or have to sign up for a time-share condo to have access to our market experts. Education is constant and it is offered to anyone who asks and offered not only by those with a long group of letters after their name. In markets, experience is seen as a better teacher.

Those principles were given to us by the founders of our movement, based on their strong conviction that the only way to rescue family farming and public space was to put them together. Those ideas have been exposed to the air of thousands of places since the rebirth of the farmers market movement in the 1970s and successfully connected unlikely collaborators, created safe space for diversity and championed innovation.

We have done amazing things with our markets in the last 40+ years. Thousands of pilots have shown the way to finding new businesses to vend their products, engaging people through inclusive outreach, marketing open-air or shed market culture to shoppers unfamiliar with them, and adding new appropriate technology when necessary. Yet, we are all aware that we still have a lot to do. That we had only reached a tiny percentage. That as more places are hollowed out economically, our work becomes ever more important and even more difficult.

So, no matter which candidate was yours, my hope is that you remain committed to the goals we have worked on together. That we agree that the combative nature of a national campaign cannot continue indefinitely or it will be absorbed by its citizens and become the culture of the times. Division is the enemy, because our work relies on finding the best way to include each person as and when they enter, whether they are a newly arrived resident, a suburbanite, a small town grandmother, a rural father or an urbanite. Therefore, we need to redouble our efforts to make markets the civic centers for everyone. Let’s make a pact to double the number of markets in all areas, extend seasonal markets to year-round (and if your response to that is we can’t grow year-round in our area, do remember that your region used to do just that) and triple the number of small producers by the time of the next election. In order to do that, we will need to lose more of the assumptions that we all make about those different from us and to work harder to find common ground. I’m more than ready to continue this work during this new administration and will be open to participating in any conversation in which I can be helpful. I look forward to hearing from many of you about how your work will evolve and grow. And I’ll see you at the market.

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Thanks, 700 Magazine Street

New Orleans-In 2016, Crescent City Farmers Market announced that the flagship Saturday morning farmers market – held at the corner of Magazine and Girod since 1995 – would need to find a new home by fall. As the new market era at Julia and Carondelet begins, one-time market staff and long-time shopper Dar Wolnik looks back on the muraled parking lot.

 

The circa 1991 mural of a coffee wagon heading to a small town store and Reily Foods’  prized chinaberry tree set this parking lot apart from others in the CBD.

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The original mural. This part has since been destroyed by the developers.

Why a market?

In 1995, two of the Crescent City Farmers Market (CCFM) founders – the late, sorely missed Sharon Litwin, and the geographically departed, sorely missed, but still kicking Richard McCarthy – realized its potential as the home for their upcoming market, and arranged to meet with the Reily Foods patriarch. Richard often shared the story of how when he completed his pitch, Boatner asked how much money he was requesting. Richard replied, “I don’t want your money, I want your parking lot Saturday mornings.” Reily was reportedly charmed by the request and gratified that his new mural and the carefully tended tree would serve as the host for this idea. Their handshake agreement between CCFM and Reily lasted for 21 years until Boatner’s passing.

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The garage mural and the garage as seen from Girod Street. The Magazine Street entrance to the parking lot is to the middle right of the photo. There is also a mural on the wall to the left of this photo, some of which was preserved by the developers.

The warehouse district used to be full of buildings just like it, but just like this one’s fate in the very near future, they were torn down for shiny, much taller buildings. The garage behind the mural served as the parking for weekday Reily employees and became where the rainy day markets were held, with storage rooms around its edges and an off-limits parking area at the back.

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Inside the garage

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The flower ladies stop for a quick discussion on an “inside” market day.

The inside garage was affectionately nicknamed “Little Calcutta” for the humidity and humanity it contains when used by the market.  One of the larger garage doors hadn’t opened since early 2005; after a while, the track became rusted and trash-filled and the market vendors learned to avoid market staff when we went to get help to open or to close it.  Certain spots in the roof would drip during heavy rains and vendors learned to set up just to the right or left. We actually marked the floor to make it easier to avoid water falling on one’s products or head, until finally, the roof was repaired. We used to dream of spiffing up the garage by whitewashing the walls and adding murals or posters, but as we say here, then Katrina happened. No other explanation should be needed.I think actual lights were added recently, which made it seem like Santa Claus had finally stopped by to reward our good behavior. Or maybe it was that the market just got around to asking the owners for those things. Sometimes it’s hard to know what and when to ask for when a place is offered free of charge and comes with donated cans of coffee too.

 

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This was the newer storage space.

The storage room used by the market was a loose description of a room at all, and had a lock on the door that probably could have been broken by an excited dog jumping at it. It also came with an air shaft/skylight in the middle of the room that supplied the only light in there. Sometimes it was better to work in the dark so that whatever critters who lived in the gloom could not be seen. I still shudder thinking about it. The current staff doesn’t believe me when I tell them that this storage space was a step up from the previous one that we finally had to evacuate. Let’s just say the less said about it, the better. And that once out of the old space, I don’t believe anyone has ever entered it again.

The outdoor lot was the true home of the CCFM though. The Girod side was open to the sidewalk with only some yellow parking barriers between. When the market was at its largest size (summer 2004-2005) vendors had to set up facing the sidewalk on that side. We found that asking farmers to squeeze into spaces with their tables touching or almost touching their fellow vendors tables was a tricky and delicate undertaking. I am sure that is no surprise to any market manager.

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Market Umbrella Executive Director Kate Parker talks about the late, legendary Diana Pinckley and her impact. That is founder Sharon Litwin in the peach shirt, who was always great about showing up for important occasions. Still miss seeing her around town.   Both are now memorialized on the wooden tokens used by the market.                                                                    R.I.P. Diana and Sharon.

 

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Isabel and Miguel Mendez and kids, 15 years

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In pictures, the mural offered an unrealistic sense of the size of the market and I often saw visitors who came to pay homage a little disappointed at the size of the actual market. I’d approach them and introduce myself and almost invariably get the “It’s…smaller than I thought it would be.” The mural could also be a point of tension as the market organization was tasked with its protection during market hours, leading to constant reminders to vendors who liked to lean things against it. The wall made the spaces right below shady for some hours, which was welcome in the summer but not in the winter. Funny to watch people congregate in different places in the market depending on the season, just like cats searching for that spot with the perfect amount of warm sun or cool shade.

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The small size of the lot meant that vendors had to “offload” their products, using the ancient, creaky Reily hand trucks or by carrying items from the vehicle one armful at a time to their tables outside. In the early days, everyone used umbrellas and one of the green, handmade tables supplied by the market making the overall site colorful and human-scaled. Once 10’ x 10” pop-up tents became available, vendors began to use those instead and a sea of white became the dominant sight. That is until the number of vendors increased and led to fights about tent poles intruding on the neighboring space and as a result, vendor tents had to be done away with although the market itself still used them for their activities. Umbrellas returned, the mural was front and center again and vendors spent many successive mornings constantly readjusting them to maximize the shade and to secure them from gusts or from wildly gesturing shoppers. I know that Richard was secretly pleased by the loss of tents, as he was always obsessed with the visuals of what we were presenting. He found umbrellas so inviting that he even renamed the organization Market Umbrella when we left Loyola University and our ECOnomics Institute name behind in 2008.

At its maximum in those years, the market welcomed a few thousand shoppers during its four hours of sales that offer a stage for successive casts of characters. Like most long-standing markets, the opening hour of 8 a.m. was for those seasoned shoppers who knew where to park, what they wanted to buy and how to get the heck outta there before the perusers came at 9 a.m. Those second-hour folks liked to chat, stick around a while and usually bought what was most appealing on that day or recommended to them right then by their friends or their favorite farmers. They grumbled about parking a great deal. After that group headed to the next cultural outing of the day, the service workers and other late-nighters slowly showed up. The number of bikes locked on all available posts and groups of bleary-eyed socializers squeezing into any available seating were good indicators of the 10 o’clock hour starting. In the last hour 11-12, one saw some tourists, those new to markets as well as a few hard-core regulars who like many New Orleanians simply do not get out of the house until around the lunch hour.

Many more subgroups, special guests, and even some “bad pennies,” all of whom made that space sparkle and hum every Saturday morning for 21 years, could be studied there as the sum of the social capital created by the market. We market staff often took the time to do just that, either from the vantage point of the low Reily building roof across Girod or while standing across the street on Magazine.

We valued that space so much that, as we began to design our fair trade/handmade market in 2002 that we called “Festivus, the Holiday Market For the Rest of Us,” we never questioned setting it up there, in the middle of Girod Street in years 1 and 2 and then on December Sundays in the same parking lot for years 3, 4 and 5 of Festivus’ run. Festivus was meant to drive sales to our farmers market during slow December and to allow our organization to move the dial a little more on the artisanal/entrepreneurial movement around us. Using the same lot for a new seasonal market meant we had freedom to design it differently and to include more wacky ideas than we could squeeze into our regular market. Many people still stop me to reminisce about the Office of Homeland Serenity, the Grievance Pole, and the Flattery Booth or some of the other moments of the 2003-2007 era of Festivus.

I consider it my great honor to have played a part in Market Umbrella’s history at that location, to have worked with the Reily Company staff and to now to be one of the local keepers of the stories about Sharon and Richard and John and the vendors and shoppers of those first days and of that space. The space itself is owed many thanks and so don’t be alarmed if at the first light on a Saturday, you notice a small group there with a bottle and glasses toasting the good fortune of having 700 Magazine as our flagship home for all of those years.

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New location at Julia and Carondelet, on the streetcar line as of 2016.

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 I was the Deputy Director of Market Umbrella and then its Marketshare Director during 2001-2011. Since then, I continue to work as a national consultant for public markets and also as the senior researcher at Farmers Market Coalition, the national farmers market advocacy organization.

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