What Is A Farmers’ Market?

Laura Avery
Mirror contributing writer

   In the panoply of universally recognized archetypes of civilization, few resonate as much as the term “farmers market.” As humans, the needs to feed, clothe, and house ourselves and to form societies of commerce and companionship are common to all societies in all corners of the globe, so we probably share, somewhere in our DNA, a genetic memory of some sort of produce-for-goods trading activity. Farmers markets are our collective history, and sadly, some have been relegated to history.
   When I was growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, the fabled West Side Market was not known to me until I ventured to explore it, sometime in my twenties, almost as a cultural footnote to my home town. Once I was inside the cavernous white tiled main hall which was built in 1909, I unlocked a childhood memory of hurrying past the chicken slaughtering room on my one and only visit to the market, my face pressed into my mother’s coat, in a futile effort to avoid the sights and smells of that awful spectacle. The room is still there, right where I remembered it, selling cleaned and portioned chicken parts on immaculate beds of ice. On my adult visit everything was wonderful. The inside permanent stalls that sold sausages, cheese and pastry proudly displayed their lineage and tenure at the market that often went back for generations. Outside in the terminal market area next to the train tracks, produce purveyors sold fruit from California and eastern grown vegetables to wholesale and retail customers alike, and there was an occasional local farm stand squeezed into the mix. The West Side Market was recently added to the National Registry of Historic Places, and its future seems secure.
   California’s farmers markets were reborn in 1978 with the passage of the farmer to consumer Direct Marketing Act, which allowed farmers to sell their own produce directly to consumers at locations designated as a “Certified Farmers Market.” Prior to that, growers were required to sell produce in standard pack containers through commercial marketing channels. Roadside stands were permitted only on the grower’s farm. Consumer advocacy groups were quick to take advantage of farmers markets for bringing good quality produce into low income areas, and the first Farmers Market in California was organized by the Interfaith Hunger Coalition in a church parking lot in Gardena, where it still operates today.
   Strange as it may seem, the marriage of farmers markets and the State Department of Food and Agriculture which authorizes their existence was not always a happy one. The first round of regulations allowed for only fresh fruits, whole nuts and vegetables, but farmers markets started selling processed and non-food products such as juice, dried fruit, eggs, honey, flowers and plants. A revision to the regulations included these products and also livestock products (cheese and meat,) wine (still restricted to ABC licensing requirements) and worms (vermiculture). Farmers markets were to be operated only by a municipality, a non-profit organization or a farmer, no doubt in order to reduce the opportunity for farmers markets to compete with conventional produce marketing channels such as retail grocery stores and ag marketing cooperatives. There was pressure from packing houses to market second grade or “utility” fruit that commercial buyers were unwilling to handle, so a new category of inspected fruit was created that could be sold only at farmers markets. This created additional inspection and enforcement responsibilities for county ag inspectors as well as market managers, who were required to ensure that all utility grade fruit was coming from stamped, inspected boxes. Most farmers markets maintained a higher standard, however, and preferred that all the fruit be “field run” –- picked right out of the orchard and not put through a sorting line at a packing house –- which would normally include up to 35% of slightly blemished or offsize fruit but which also included 65% of the number one stuff. Field run fruit could also be left on the trees to ripen fully, thereby providing much better flavor and some truly awesome sized pieces. No piece of fruit could be sold that did not meet minimum standards.
   Once utility grade became an industry standard that was shippable, boxes destined for farmers markets no longer needed to be individually stamped. Utility grade fruit was abundant and cheap, and some farmers found it advantageous to augment their loads with low-cost purchased fruit. Detection was next to impossible since they grew the same fruit right down to the specific variety, and any farmer can tell you that buying fruit is a lot easier than growing it. Thus began a slow evolution of farmers markets away from what a farmer could simply grow and sell toward what a farmer could bring to a market based on the opportunities and pressures exerted by a dynamic and demanding buying public. California farmers markets today are undergoing a period of rapid re-invention in which some people can’t tell they’re at a farmers market until they smell the kettle corn. Does this mean that farmers markets are on the way out, and who gets to decide what makes a farmers market anyway?
   Stay tuned.
   ** Holiday Market Schedule - ALL MARKETS ARE OPEN On USUAL DAYS at USUAL HOURS **