farmers markets

On Being a Boss: Kristen Essig Takes Over at Sainte Marie – Eater Interviews – Eater NOLA

Below, is a link to an interview with a New Orleans chef who has embedded local purchasing into the very DNA of her kitchen.

The day I met Kristen was the day (2002? 2003?) that she interviewed to be our Crescent City Farmers Market (CCFM) Tuesday/Thursday market manager. She came to the interview with a slate of ideas and opinions backed up with a vitality that could not be denied. We were surprised that someone with her fine dining experience (and obvious ambition) wanted to work for our little organization, but she explained that she wanted to know all facets of the food system.
During her tenure, she can be credited with building our Green Plate Special program, which allows restaurants to come for a full month of Tuesdays to sell plate lunches to the shoppers at the CCFM and, of course, allows those chefs to understand the farmers and fishers better and to have long stretches to watch market vending in person.

As a chef, she came with a “shoot from the hip” framework and never stopped running the entire time she worked with us. Like anyone who has worked on the line at top restaurants, she was intimidating to some but we knew that she always led with what was in the best interest of our farmers and fishers. Through her, we understood the psyche of the chef better and started to realize that we should get to know the sous chefs and line cooks that were more often at the market and were on their way to the top position. Many of those have now become leaders of their own restaurant (why, like our friend Kristen Essig!) and almost all have become fierce supporters of those markets.

“As a line cook, you develop a relationship with vendors as they come in the back door, but actually working with the vendors at the market was a totally different thing. You’re working, really, with 20 small businesses, and they’re all trying to make certain quotas, and they all have certain amounts of product that they have to move. You develop strong relationships with these people—you learn that they have bills to pay, whose kid needs braces, etc.”

On Being a Boss: Kristen Essig Takes Over at Sainte Marie – Eater Interviews – Eater NOLA.

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News & Events | VEGGI Farmer’s Cooperative

This is a new Vietnamese-led growers initiative in New Orleans. I hope we begin to see more production cooperatives among farmers, especially urban and peri-urban farmers.

News & Events | VEGGI Farmer's Cooperative.

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Ask away…

To follow up on Monday’s post on excellent questions NEVER to ask farmers at a market, here is a great site full of questions once SHOULD ask a farmer. I can envision these on a laminated card at the Welcome Booth or maybe on Facebook with a few listed weekly. Questions for farmers

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Four Questions You Should Never Ask at a Farmers Market | Civil Eats

I agree with 3 of the 4. I think it’s okay to ask if you can buy something early-the market should have a way to answer that question, and sometimes it’s allowed. And yes, sometimes stores do let customers in early.

I also think when someone asks about a farmer’s life (like when do you get up?) it is only to learn and to connect. If it doesn’t offend you, you can use the moment to teach other people about the life of a farmer. But dear shopper, do beware the grumpy (tired) farmer!

Four Questions You Should Never Ask at a Farmers Market | Civil Eats.

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Vermont Law School Helps Farmers Markets and CSAs

Good overview of the new Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School that Laurie Ristino is heading. I am honored to be part of one of their first grants to help markets, written in partnership with NOFA-VT. If the proposal is successful, legal resources will be written for markets and for CSAs over the next few years.

VT Law

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Regulating the life out of community food systems

A link to an excellent opinion piece by Stacy Miller, project director at Farmers Market Coalition where the deep crisis of regulatory burden on small family farms is addressed. No question that the lack of clarity among cities, states and the federal government to write and administer common-sense regulation is one of the most important areas that all food system organizers and practioners need to work together to solve.

HuffPost piece

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Cleaver & Co. New Orleans

I just visited the newest member of the New Orleans localvore family, Cleaver & Co. a no-frills, full-service butcher shop. The posted educational information at this store is easily understood but when necessary, the staff is quite knowledgeable when it comes to more in-depth questions. It makes me think about how we communicate livestock issues and value within farmers markets; has the consumer education gone as deeply as it has for fruit and vegetable production? Should market managers explain the regulation and production issues in more detail than we have? Really, how much do market managers actually know about what unique issues these producers face, such as amount of land needed for grazing, treating animal illnesses naturally, finding healthy feed, selecting the right USDA processor when applicable and so on…


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Maryland Food System Map | Center for a Livable Future

This is one of my favorite food system sites . Wouldn’t it be great if each state and every regional projects collected and shared this type of visual data?

A screen shot of the Maryland Food Map circa July 2013.

A screen shot of the Maryland Food System Map circa July 2013.


Note from the organizers:

Map updates include expanded Nutrition Assistance data and updated points of interest for Maryland.
Nutrition Assistance – new and updated data about federal nutrition assistance programs.
SNAP usage by Zip Code
Schools with 50% or more children who are eligible for free and reduced cost meals
Afterschool Meal Program Sites
WIC office locations
NOTE: The following existing data layers have been moved to this category:
SNAP Participation by County
SNAP Retailers
WIC Retailers
Points of Interest – updated points of interest note changes in addresses and expand lists statewide.
Institutional sites in this list – schools and hospitals – will be expanded further this year, as we gather data and statistics about how these institutions are using local food. Here are the layers currently updated:
Hospitals
Public schools
Recreation centers
Senior centers

Maryland Food System Map | Center for a Livable Future.

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Celebrate Farmers Market Week with FMC

Farmers Market Coalition

It’s officially NATIONAL FARMERS MARKET WEEK. Use hashtag ‪#‎FarmMktWeek‬ to share your markets’ happenings, and use ‪#‎FMCFUN‬ and ‪#‎FMCCookingDemo‬ to take part in FMC’s Instagram Challenges this week.

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How Fracking Affects Your Farmers Market

“As fracking expands into areas that are home to some of the most productive farmland in the world, questions need to be raised regarding the long-term safety for the agricultural industry.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-fracking-affects-your-farmers-market.html#ixzz2b0f0EWi3

How Fracking Affects Your Farmer's Market | Care2 Healthy Living.

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As some of you know, I believe that the era of mission-driven farmers markets has just begun and that how we view our work needs to expand to help the farmers and buyers that we work with. In that mindset, we should begin to examine the idea of public markets entirely devoted to restaurant/grocer (then wholesale) sales of local goods, curated with the same intention and mission by those of us that currently manage retail farmers markets.
In order to do that, we should learn from wholesale terminals such as this one in Canada. I found a couple of things within this article about the Ontario Terminal fascinating. My notes are in italics.

In less than 40 seconds, DiLiso has placed his order: cabbage, cipollini onions, bean sprouts and bok choy. Na enters the data on a hand-held digital device then, with a mutual nod, moves on to another client, leaving DiLiso to gather up his vegetables.
That’s how deals are done at The Ontario Food Terminal, the giant U-shaped building on 16 hectares off the Queensway in west Toronto: friendly, no-nonsense, fast.

(Notice the ability to enter sales on a hand held device?)

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DiLiso and his small crew criss-cross the market to find sellers they trust who have the best deals on vegetables.
“It’s all about relationships,” DiLiso says.

(I dunno- it sounds like it is as much about price?)

Ontario Terminal story

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“Familiar Strangers”

Supporting (and understanding) strong and weak ties is a fascinating part of the work that markets do to build food systems. This story expands into another area: “familiar strangers” or people that we see on a regular basis in our daily lives. Markets obviously figure into this type of research.
What I have learned from sociologists is that strong ties are those kinship relationships that you turn to for support. Weak ties offer support through their number and through the diversity of acquaintances that can offer advice and connections, and of course, that can grow into strong ties. This change happens in community settings like markets.
The public health sector is one that relies deeply on markets work with both and with familiar strangers. The word of mouth work to encourage citizens in low-income and adverse areas to begin market shopping is based on this science. Additionally, working to encourage families and children to market as well as the work with farmers is about understanding their networks and how to add to them. Studying these ties might also be potential funding opportunities for market networks. The more that we know about how people connect to each other, the better we run markets.

“Unlike other social networks, where people interact within a circle of friends and acquaintances, we show
an often-ignored type of social link: weak, passive and indirectly enabled by daily encounters. As a result of
deep-rooted individual behavior patterns, our results also present the collective regularity of people with their recurring encounters as evidence, explaining the familiar strangers” phenomenon in daily life.”

Now We Can Actually Count and Track the 'Familiar Strangers' in Our Lives – Eric Jaffe – The Atlantic Cities.

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