Apr 7, 2007

Farmers’ Markets Connect Urban, Rural Residents

The societal distance between America’s rural areas and its urban centers has never been as great as some might suggest.

In large part, our cities developed around commerce that, in the nation’s earlier days, involved bringing the bounty of the surrounding farmlands and waterways to a centralized market where the largest number of customers could be reached from one place.

As America entered its Industrial Age and international commerce became the norm, cities lost some of their connections to their rural neighbors. Ironically, in the age of the global economy, that connection is being re-established thanks partly to the re-emergence of farmers’ markets as a feature of urban and suburban life.

This reconnection of the urban and rural through the same marketplace that first bound them together has become an important and vibrant part of the way agriculture’s products reach customers. Nationwide, according to the USDA, 19,000 farmers sell their products exclusively at farmers’ markets.

This not only offers our farmers access to additional markets that help them remain successful but helps reintroduce urban residents to the people who grow their food – and the farmers to their customers. This double advantage is why we in New Jersey have made increasing the number of farmers’ markets in the state one of our recurring economic development strategies, which are adopted at our annual agricultural convention.

Nationally, the importance of farmers’ markets as a direct-marketing tool has clearly been recognized. Since 1994, the USDA has published the National Directory of Farmers’ Markets. In the first edition, there were 1,755 listed. By 2004, that number had more than doubled to 3,706. In New Jersey, we have mirrored this trend. We now have 80 farmers’ markets, with 28 of them opening in the past four years.

They are a phenomenon that must be experienced to be appreciated. In many cases, they serve as a community event as much as a place to shop for farm-fresh products. There often is live music or other entertainment in addition to the array of farmers. Chefs from nearby restaurants sometimes hold cooking demonstrations highlighting in-season products. Customers often linger to discuss the finer points of how their purchases were grown by the farmers selling to them.

Not only do farmers’ markets serve as a social event, they can be important arenas for social programs as well. They are a key participant in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition programs, making fresh, locally grown agricultural products available to at-risk women, children and senior citizens. Nationwide, 58 percent of markets take part in such programs.

As participants in these efforts, farmers’ markets bring highly nutritious foods to those who otherwise might not have easy access to them. By making the connection between our local farmers and the residents in nearby urban areas, we not only ensure that the foods they are getting are the freshest and most nutritious, but also that transportation costs are kept low by limiting the number of miles covered to get the food to these markets.

Clearly, farmers’ markets promote nutrition education, wholesome eating and better food preparation. Nationwide, 25 percent of farmers’ markets include some form of gleaning programs that help distribute food to needy families. New Jersey has seen an offshoot of farmers’ markets emerge called Youth Farmstands, in which urban teens staff corner produce sales and learn the ins and outs of a retail business at the most basic level.

These days, it is hard to find an urban or suburban area that doesn’t want to jump into the farmers’ market arena. Development and redevelopment planners view them as a key to drawing people to their commercial districts.

Downtown revitalization projects in New Jersey towns like Salem, Summit and Netcong have all prominently featured farmers’ markets. Burlington County, one of our state’s more agriculturally oriented counties, plans to make a farmers’ market a major feature in a living history agricultural park it is developing in one of the county’s more developed towns.

The success of farmers’ markets in our own state has shown that – properly planned and promoted – they can draw hundreds or thousands of people a day, bringing foot traffic to a downtown’s commercial area that otherwise might not have come. Those farmers’ market shoppers invariably check out some of the stores located near the markets. They return to visit the restaurants whose chefs offer cooking demonstrations at the markets.

In short, farmers’ markets can and do serve as a catalyst for urban and suburban areas to reinvent themselves, while at the same time bringing us as a nation full circle to the kind of commercial model that first helped make our cities great.

By continuing to strengthen that connection, farmers’ markets will play an important role in the future of both our developed and rural landscapes.