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  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Non-farmers selling at Farmer's markets
  • Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 22:28:36 -0500


Phil wrote:

>>>>>Here in our markets anymore we have no new growers, they are just
getting the items they nned form the large grocery store chains and coming
to markets and saying they are growing it. In the past five years I can
only find two new growers in our big markets. There is something wrong with
this picture. This is a little too much work for a lot of folks. We keep
cutting back on some items every year because the market managers will let
vendors sell some items at least one month ahead of the actual growing time
it takes to develop a crop, melons for example, late May , I don't think so.

=====
Last year we attempted to sell some produce in a nearby city at several
different markets. As I have mentioned before, we were mainly trying to
market our grass-fed beef. Even though the official policy is that all
growers must have actually grown the produce, it became clear that this was
not always the case. Especially with the huge influx of Hmong sellers. Ultra
competitive prices and almost every seller had the same products. They have
taken over much of market there. The produce appears to not only not always
grown by them, but also may not be organic, may even be bought from
wholesale suppliers. I do know that they have approached sweet corn growers
to remarket the produce as if it were their own.

Surprisingly, most shoppers are either oblivious to this, don't care (some
have told me they don't care if it is organic or not), or expect the
managers of the market to insure the market rules are being carried out.

Needless to say, last year the complaints reached such a level that the
market managers had to act. And their solution was to announce that they
would probably discontinue the rules since they can not enforce them.

If this should ever happen in the market we now sell at (and much more
profitably I might mention)I feel that we would be forced to take action and
come up with a new market with very strict rules in terms of farmers and
entreprenuers who produce the items that they sell.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com




  • Non-farmers selling at Farmer's markets, Rick Williams, 09/27/2002

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