Earlier this decade, four current vendors who participate in the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market took a stand. It was not an extraordinary stand, but one unique in Westminster at the time. It could have been futile, but since the following years have revealed some success, that stand continues to grow in its poignancy. And, since I was one of the four members who took that stand, I feel justified to explain.
The Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market was viewed as a dying market at the time. Many of the long time farmer’s retired, leaving only two brave members of the market to remain, determined to keep it alive, so to speak. The two vendors are Greg Thorne of Thorne Farm and Jim Crebs of Tomatoes, Etc. At the time, Jackie Coldsmith of De La Tierra Gardens and I were produce vendors at another failing market in a much smaller town. Jim called me one Saturday morning imploring me to join the Downtown Westminster market. Since nothing good was happening at the other market, I agreed to join Greg and Jim at the supposedly dying market.
To explain the “nothing good” that was happening, the market in which Jackie and I sold our produce was a typical farmer’s market in the region, which, when the regulations of the market were read, revealed that actual “farming” was not a requisite. Within the guidelines, farmers were allowed to buy a certain percentage of their produce for resale at the market. There are several reasons for this. The main reason was to assist the fruit vendors. Since early in a season, ripe fruit is very minimal, consisting of, basically strawberries, in order to make those vendors time worthwhile, it was common to allow them to buy other produce to supplement what they could offer from their own farm.
It just so happened that year that a somewhat large produce vendor joined the market, and he took full advantage of the “buying in” loophole in the regulations in early June. While Jackie and I had salad mix and spinach to offer, which is natural for the season, yet takes considerable labor to produce that most farms do not wish to expend, the larger operation had everything from cantaloupe to tomatoes to corn, at least a month before the same produce would be ripening at our own farms. Where did he find such produce? Why at the produce depot in Jessup of course! That depot is the main venue where all of the bulk produce is shipped from… anywhere in the world. The produce comes in huge shipping containers and is extremely cheap. What resulted from the said farmer’s “buying in” practices was that both Jackie’s farm and my farm’s offerings appeared somewhat timid and expensive to the average customer. People flocked to the larger farmer’s stand for 25 cent cucumbers grown who knows where, and when our own cucumbers came in, there was no way we could meet that price.
It seems that I lived in the naïve world at the time that thought that farmers only sold what they grew. At least that was my ideal. The thought that someone who worked the land and grew fresh produce would buy wholesale produce to resell in their name was absurd. Alas, it is all too common.
But is where produce originates even important to the customer? As I witnessed in the smaller town, the customers stood in line for the cheaper produce, regardless of where it originated. In their defense, a sign such as “WE DID NOT GROW THIS PRODUCE” was not hung by the said wares. But again, does the customer even care?
We did. That is, Greg, Jim, Jackie and I did. When Jackie and I joined the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market, the four of us quickly reorganized the regulations so that the market became “Producer Only”. Now what does that mean? The regulations we put down were that if produce is sold at our market, it is produced by the farm selling said produce. Period. And this was our stand. Actual farmers will be selling their wares at the market. This may sound odd, or not at all impressive, but when one witnesses the crafty means by which some people swindle a buck, integrity is much more ideal than any of those disingenuous practices. So, as a result, we have created a farmer’s market that consists of genuine farmers, where customers can talk to their farmers, and question them about their practices and how they grow their produce, AND the answer received won’t be something like, “Uh, dunno.”
The title for this entry starts with “Local”. This word has been of specific importance this year for us true local farmers. While there will be another entry to further explore this “local” trend, suffice it to say, that what we have developed at the Downtown Westminster Farmer’s Market is not only local, but it is fresh, AND it is grown by our farmers. Period.