farmers markets

Harvest of Change

An engaging interactive story on today’s agribusiness sector from the Des Moines Register and USA Today.

Amid all the challenges, farmers find lucrative markets shaped by shifting consumer tastes. Farmers markets, where consumers can interact directly with the growers of their food, expanded steadily in the USA from 1994 to 2014, almost quintupling to 8,268, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In 2012, fresh fruits and vegetables sold directly to consumers were a $1.3 billion industry, up 8% since 2007, the census found. That same year, organic food sales reached about $27 billion, according to the USDA, up from $11 billion in 2004.

link to the 5-part story in The Register

Harvest of Change.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Inside the ‘Pay What You Want’ Marketplace

I wonder how many markets reach out to the yard sale-rs as potential shoppers? An ad in the paper near the listings perhaps? Or creating an event for a cookbook swap or a kitchen item swap at the market? This is one way markets can utilize the ecological community that connects farmers markets to other like-minded re-users interested in less packaging and waste in modern society.

The informal economy [of the yard sale] grants consumers much more power to stretch the value of their dollar—which has become especially crucial in the context of the Great Recession and other times of economic stress and uncertainty, where yard sales and other means of informal trade can be a survival strategy for many middle- and lower-class people.

Story

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Training Your Brain to Prefer Healthy Foods

Scientists have suspected that, once unhealthy food addiction circuits are established, they may be hard or impossible to reverse, subjecting people who have gained weight to a lifetime of unhealthy food cravings and temptation. To find out whether the brain can be re-trained to support healthy food choices, Roberts and colleagues studied the reward system in thirteen overweight and obese men and women, eight of whom were participants in a new weight loss program designed by Tufts University researchers and five who were in a control group and were not enrolled in the program.

“We don’t start out in life loving French fries and hating, for example, whole wheat pasta,” said senior and co-corresponding author Susan B. Roberts, Ph.D., director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA, who is also a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “This conditioning happens over time in response to eating – repeatedly! – what is out there in the toxic food environment.”

Training Your Brain to Prefer Healthy Foods.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Plastic versus paper

From USAToday:

There’s a growing generation gap when it comes to using plastic for purchases under $5, a survey out this week by CreditCards.com reveals. More than half of Millennials are likely to whip out a card for a pack of gum or a newspaper, while 77% of people older than 50 still dig out cash.

The plastic cards young people are reaching for at cash registers these days are overwhelmingly debit. Those ages 18 to 29 favor debit over credit by a ratio of almost 3 to 1, the survey of 983 credit card holders showed.

Other findings from the survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for CreditCards.com done July 17-20 and July 24-27:
• Overall, 65% of Americans typically pay for purchases under $5 with cash; 22% use debit cards, and 11% use credit cards.
• Cash is the preferred payment method for almost eight in 10 rural card holders, vs. 62% of city dwellers and suburbanites.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Graphic and misleading title: “Local food might not be as ‘local’ as you think”

An example of how the media reports unfairly on farmers markets; the idea that each market community decides its own definition of local is clear in the graphic, but the headline is misleading. It would be better and more appropriate if the story was titled:
Each community decides local for itself
Graphic: Local food might not be as 'local' as you think.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Survey Monkey sez start with your conclusion

Writing your conclusion first is just like proposing a hypothesis for a science experiment.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

How America’s Largest Worker Owned Co-Op Lifts People Out of Poverty

New York City is going—in a big way—for worker-owned cooperatives. Inspired by the model of CHCA and prodded by a new network of co-op members and enthusiasts, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council allocated $1.2 million to support worker cooperatives in 2015’s budget. According to the Democracy at Work Institute, New York’s investment in co-ops is the largest by any U.S. city government to date.

Cooperatives are businesses owned and controlled by their members on the basis of one member, one vote. Given enough time, worker-owned cooperatives tend to increase wages and improve working conditions, and advocates say a local co-op generally stays where it’s founded and acts as a leadership-building force.

How America's Largest Worker Owned Co-Op Lifts People Out of Poverty | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Can the lexicon of local make a global impact? Book review by Stacy Miller

LOCALLexiconBk

You may want to check out the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development’s (JAFSCD) “Book Nook”, which contains in-depth reviews of current books on food systems. The link at the end of this post directs you to a review of a new book on the language of sustainability: Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America, by Douglas Gayeton. The review is by Stacy Miller, who many readers will know as the Farmers Market Coalition’s founding Executive Director. Stacy is now working as an independent consultant and as a FMC Program Advisor and also spends some of her time valiantly untangling my words by serving as an editor or by offering some spot analysis for many of the reports that I am doing for markets and their advocates.

Finding the appropriate bright and brave words to describe the energetic nature of a farmers market as well as the larger food system work happening is something we both think about in this work that we do and she probably had to think about daily as the FMC director. I can remember a day in her kitchen when we wrote down and discussed lots of words to describe what became the skeleton of the Farmers Market Metrics project at FMC and how we had to leave it unfinished when I left town a day later, promising to return to it. We did, and still do good-naturedly debate (alongside our colleagues at FMC and University of Wisconsin) for and against the use of different words and definitions within that metrics work.
So, to expand her thinking to this lovely book on the entire realm of sustainability language in our farming and food world seems mighty appropriate. Here are a few of my favorite passages from her review, linked below:

“The idea that language is fundamental to social movements is nothing new. The power to bestow names on objects, people, places, and philosophies is undervalued, so we hardly notice when it gets abused. Noam Chomsky famously observed that
destructive paradigms thrive because they impose on people “the feeling that they really are incompetent to deal with complex and important issues: they’d better leave it to the captain” (Chomsky,1987, p. 42).”

“I give a lot of credit to a former film director who can find a compelling poster child for, and condense the complexities of, expansive terms like economies of community (see Figure 1), soil food web, GMO, or traceability.”

“The hypothesis behind the Lexicon of​ ​ Sustainability is compelling… We tune​ ​out vocabulary we don’t understand, avoid dialogue ​ ​or questions that make us feel ill-informed or​ ​hopeless, and thereby enable a cycle of peripheral ​ ​awareness that looks dangerously like apathy. And​ ​the corporate food monopolies take advantage of ​ ​this whenever they can — on packaging, in advertising,​ ​and in lobbying efforts designed to “protect ​ ​us” from too much information.”

I will pass this review to many of my colleagues and will also get this book based on her review and pass that around too. What better can be said?

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Landmark Study Underscores Wide-Ranging Benefits of Pesticide-Free Farming

From The Guardian:

“The research was peer-reviewed and is published in a respected scientific journal, the British Journal of Nutrition.

The results are based on an analysis of 343 peer-reviewed studies from around the world – more than ever before – which examine differences between organic and conventional fruit, vegetables and cereals.

“The crucially important thing about this research is that it shatters the myth that how we farm does not affect the quality of the food we eat,” said Helen Browning, chief executive of Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming.

UK sales of organic food, which is often considerably more expensive than non-organic, are recovering after a slump during the economic crisis.

Plants produce many of their antioxidant compounds to fight back against pest attacks, so the higher levels in organic crops may result from their lack of protection by chemical sprays. But the scientists say other reasons may be important, such as organic varieties being bred for toughness and not being overfed with artificial fertilisers.

Leifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants “have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers”. But they also note that no long-term studies showing health benefits from a broad organic diet have yet been conducted.

The researchers found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in conventional crops. Pesticide residues were found on conventional crops four times more often than on organic food. The research was funded by the EU and an organic farming charity.

The research is certain to be criticised: the inclusion of so many studies in the analysis could mean poor quality work skews the results, although the team did “sensitivity analyses” and found that excluding weaker work did not significantly change the outcome.”

link to report at Cambridge Journals

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/11/organic-food-more-antioxidants-study

3 CommentsLeave a comment

FNS begins process to offer grants for replacement EBT services and equipment

This is a pre-solicitation notice to assist Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and State agencies to establish a process to award support grants to eligible farmers’ markets and to develop a method that offer replacement Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Electronic Benefits Transaction (SNAP EBT) equipment and services for farmers’ markets and direct-marketing farmers.
The solicitation package will be posted on fedbizopps on or August 22, 2014. All additional details (i.e. closing date, FAR Clauses, Evaluation Factors) will be included in the solicitation package.

The request for proposal (RFP) will have a two part evaluation. Part 1 will be evaluated using a pass/fail evaluation. Part 1 evaluation factor is Experience: Offeros shall demonstrate experience with Farmers Markets and direct-marketing farmers nationwide and associated partnership experience working with the Farmer Market and direct-marketing farmer.

RFP

Part 2 evaluation factors will be provided in the solicitation package.

Alternatively, interested parties may go to https://www.fbo.gov/ and search for the Notice by using the solicitation number AG82014.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

An Introduction to MarketLink: Are you eligible to receive a free SNAP/EBT system for your market?

Farmers Market Coalition and Wholesome Wave are co-hosting a FREE webinar:

Wednesday August 13, 2014 3:00pm-4:30pm EST

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) launched MarketLink, a website that provides farmers markets and direct-marketing farmers with a one-stop-shop to become an authorized SNAP vendor and take advantage of USDA funding to obtain free or low-cost equipment and wireless services. Up to $4 million in grants for SNAP/EBT technology solutions will be available through this program for eligible markets through September 30, 2014. The quickly approaching deadline means that eligible farmers and market managers are making this important decision right now. Wholesome Wave and Farmers Market Coalition are co-hosting this free webinar to address your unanswered questions about MarketLink. Through this webinar, you will:
understand the USDA’s funding stream for enhanced SNAP benefits at markets
learn who is eligible to access USDA funding through MarketLink
learn about MarketLink, an iPhone-based EBT system that taps into $4 million in USDA funding to help new markets become SNAP/EBT accessible
hear an on-the-ground perspective on applying through MarketLink and implementing EBT
Panelists:

Rogelio Carrasco of the USDA’s Food And Nutrition Service will present an overview of the USDA’s funding for improved access to SNAP benefits at markets and the history of Marketlink
Amy Crone of NAFMNP and the Maryland Farmers Market Association will present the MarketLink program and provide an in-depth description of eligibility and application process
Sara Berney, Executive Director of Wholesome Wave Georgia, will discuss her experience applying for funds through MarketLink and recommendations for others

To register to for this webinar, please click here.

Please contact Liz at FMC at liz@farmersmarketcoalition.org, with any questions on the webinar.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Counterfeit Money at Our Markets

Here is a great post from Brian F. Moyer, Program Assistant Penn State Extension – Lehigh County:

There are many reasons we chose to sell our products at farmers markets. Some of these may include helping the public understand where there food comes from and who produces it. Another might be to capture more of the “food dollar” to keep our farms viable so the last thing we might be expecting is for someone at our markets to hand us a counterfeit bill.

Recently I received an email from a market manager who told me that their market was hit for about $600 in counterfeit $100 dollar bills. I proceeded to get the word out to as many contacts as I have so other markets in the region would be aware. What I got back surprised me. I heard from managers and vendors throughout the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast that this has happened to their markets. So, what are we to do?

Markets are very busy places and we do our best to take care of the customer as fast as we can so how are we supposed to do that AND check the money they hand us to make sure the currency is legitimate? Farmers markets are also supposed to build community so there is also a level of trust that is broken when something like this occurs. How can we as a community use that trust to strengthen our markets and prevent these types of incidents from occurring?

The market manager who contacted me said that the counterfeit bills that the vendors received were bleached five dollar bills that were reprinted to look like one hundred dollar bills so the water marks were intact and they could pass the pen test so it was very difficult for a vendor to detect even if they were being vigilant. The U.S. Secret Service is the agency responsible for investigating counterfeit currency. The following is from the U.S. Secret Services’ website http://www.secretservice.gov on some things you can look for when receiving paper currency.

How To Detect Counterfeit Money

The public has a role in maintaining the integrity of U.S. currency. You can help guard against the threat from counterfeiters by becoming more familiar with United States currency.

Look at the money you receive. Compare a suspect note with a genuine note of the same denomination and series, paying attention to the quality of printing and paper characteristics. Look for differences, not similarities.

Portrait

kym_49
kym_48

The genuine portrait appears lifelike and stands out distinctly from the background. The counterfeit portrait is usually lifeless and flat. Details merge into the background which is often too dark or mottled.

Federal Reserve and Treasury Seals

On a genuine bill, the saw-tooth points of the Federal Reserve and Treasury seals are clear, distinct, and sharp. The counterfeit seals may have uneven, blunt, or broken saw-tooth points.

kym_51
kym_50

Border

The fine lines in the border of a genuine bill are clear and unbroken. On the counterfeit, the lines in the outer margin and scrollwork may be blurred and indistinct.

kym_53
kym_52

Genuine serial numbers have a distinctive style and are evenly spaced. The serial numbers are printed in the same ink color as the Treasury Seal. On a counterfeit, the serial numbers may differ in color or shade of ink from the Treasury seal. The numbers may not be uniformly spaced or aligned.

kym_55
kym_54

Paper

Genuine currency paper has tiny red and blue fibers embedded throughout.
Often counterfeiters try to simulate these fibers by printing tiny red and blue
lines on their paper. Close inspection reveals, however, that on the counterfeit note the lines are printed on the surface, not embedded in the paper. It is illegal to reproduce the distinctive paper used in the manufacturing of United States currency.

kym_57

kym_56

Since markets usually have a focus on community, perhaps we can have a discussion as a community on how we can prevent incidents like this from occurring. Some markets have local banks as sponsors. What role can they play in helping to protect the market? What about the local law enforcement? Can we train our volunteers to help vendors with checking the money they are receiving? What message can we send that lets anyone who comes to the market know that there is zero tolerance for this type of activity?

This is perhaps a larger problem that could be affecting the surrounding small businesses and not just the market so it will take more than just the managers and vendors to prevent these types of incidents.
billimage2

billimage1

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Burt minus the bees

The NYT reminds us that the documentary about the founder of Burt’s Bees who lives a pretty simple life in Maine these days is available for
download.

“When a cadre of screaming fans in fake beards and bee costumes greet Burt at a Taiwan airport, it’s impossible not to marvel at his strange existence.” – Abby Garnett, Village Voice, Jun 3, 2014

“I’ve got 40 acres. And it’s good and sufficient and it takes good care of me. There’s no noise. There’s no children screaming. There’s no people getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning and trying to start their car and raising hell. Everybody has their own idea of what a good place to be is, and this is mine.”

NYT article

0 CommentsLeave a comment