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  • From: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] A Plea for Noisy Shopping
  • Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:39:22 -0500

This is something that I can relate to.  I participate in the LBJ Wildflower Center plant sales three times a year, and the direct customer contact is very valuable.  Not only is it fulfilling, but it is also educational - what customers need and want, what they don't like.
 
However, it is very tiring, on top of other tasks, and it is not sufficient economically.  I think we need Farmer's Markets, but farmers need other, more stable, outlets too.
 
E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 9:21 AM
Subject: [Livingontheland] A Plea for Noisy Shopping


A Plea for Noisy Shopping
http://www.plentymag.com/blogs/notebook/2007/05/a_plea_for_noisy_shopping.ph
p

The farmers market has begun again.  This means late Friday nights and
ungodly early hours on Saturday morning.  Going to any work on three hours
of sleep is hard, but on top of that I spend eight hours standing at my
farmers market stand and have few breaks since I am the only one at the
booth.  But with all of these difficulties the farmers market is one of my
favorite parts of farming.  It is here that I get to see the beginning of
the end of my work-the point where I hand over a package of pork chops
that came from a pig I raised from birth that will end up on the table of
this customer.


Even being tired the farmers market is a place of refreshment for me.
Customers who come back week after week and tell me how good the food I
raise is and how much they appreciate my work.  Those comments make it
worth it and on those days I want to quit it all, I remember those
customers and keep on because I don't want to leave their tables empty of
the kind of meat I raise.

The farmers market is of questionable economic value to me.  I could
probably sell just as much through my restaurant outlets and retail store
customers.  But I can't talk to all of those who order loin chops in a
restaurant like I can at the farmers market nor can I gain the education I
have received from all of my customers.  Some of them are FedEx drivers,
some are doctors, some are personal trainers and nutritionists, others are
artists and housewives.  They share their recipes with me, their reasons
for buying the kind of meat I raise, their insights into the local economy
movement that farmers markets are a part of.

When I go to the grocery store, and I do go there on occasion, it feels so
lifeless and quiet-vegetables piled in a hospital, animals in a meat
locker.  There is no hint of animal or dirt or plant, just protein, fiber,
vitamins, and plenty of simple sugar.  There is most of all none of the
noise of conversation between customers and sellers and between customers
and customers and sellers and sellers. 

I hope that one day grocery stores will transform into the noisy places of
conversation that are now present mostly at farmers markets.  Life is not
quiet, but full of the noisy chatter of animals and earth.  Going to the
farmers market at 4:00 a.m.?  I am tired yes, but there is too much life
there to stay tired long. 




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