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  • From: "Steve Sando" <steve AT mrlucky.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] NY Times: How New York's Greenmarket Went Stale
  • Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 19:33:54 -0700

2 great editorials follow from this morning's NY Times. Two opposite
opinions and yet to me they both strike me as "right". Very interesting food
for thought....

April 24, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
How New York's Greenmarket Went Stale
By NINA PLANCK

In 1979, when I was 8, my parents sent me to sell vegetables at roadside
stands near our 60-acre farm in Loudoun County, Va. I sold corn and
tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkins. The coins went in a Danish cookie tin and
the bills in an apron my mother made. We struggled to earn a living, and
that winter my parents took odd jobs.

The next summer the first farmers market in the area opened, in the parking
lot of the county courthouse. Swarms of people pounced on our beets and
Swiss chard. Since then my parents have earned a living from "producer only"
farmers markets, where all the food is local and you are allowed to sell
only what you have grown.

Running our stand, I learned that, in the face of global industrial
agriculture, there is enormous demand for fresh, healthful food produced by
small local farms. Others seem to agree. According to the Department of
Agriculture, the number of farmers markets in the United States rose 79
percent from 1994 to 2002, to 3,100.

Demand for local foods is global. Working in Britain in the 1990's, I was
homesick for local foods and started London's first producer-only farmers
markets. Today, British farmers at the 10 year-round markets sell fresh
milk, cream and butter; handmade cheese; wild fish, fowl and game; grass-fed
meat, poultry and eggs; farm-pressed wine and juice; heirloom apples and
carrots; and homemade preserves - all of it local. Last year, farmers sold
$6.8 million in local foods.

Once the markets were up and running, I felt homesick once again - this time
for American local foods. So I returned to Washington, where I started a
nonprofit farmers market, the first on public parkland in the capital.

Farmers markets - and all they represent - are dear to my heart. It was
exciting, then, when the fabled Greenmarket - the largest network of farmers
markets in the country - hired me last July as director of its 42 markets on
30 sites in New York City. (Greenmarket is run by the Council on the
Environment, a private, nonprofit organization housed in the mayor's
office.)

Unfortunately, not six months into the job, I was fired. And although this
story is about food, it's not about sour grapes. It's about the growing
demand for local apples, butter, beef and other fine foods - a demand that
is not being met by Greenmarket.

For many years, Greenmarket, which opened on East 59th Street in 1976, set
the standard for American farmers markets. And in many ways, it is still one
of the best. But in the last 10 years, Greenmarket had lost its way.
Compared to farmers markets in Cleveland, Madison, Wis., New Orleans, San
Francisco and elsewhere, Greenmarket was shopworn. Farmers smoked, food sat
on the ground, items were not clearly priced and sales staff were often
ignorant about the food they were selling. Some rules seemed perverse:
Greenmarket prohibits farmers from describing farming methods on price signs
(like "hormone free"), ostensibly to protect consumers from mendacious
claims.

Greenmarket was failing in its mission "to support local farms and preserve
farmland" in other ways. It was surprising to find that Greenmarket allowed
supermarket blueberries in pies and Washington State black raspberries in
jam. The cabbage in sauerkraut hailed from Canada, and there was no telling
where cider came from because most farmers were not required to get their
own fruit back from the press. Many baked goods sold at Greenmarket were
produced by large commercial operations using frozen mixes and hydrogenated
vegetable oils.

Market management was far from meritocratic. Favored farmers got the best
spaces. Some farmers broke the rules with impunity - while others who did
the same thing were fined, subjected to repeated farm inspections, or
banished to less desirable markets.

When I arrived at Greenmarket, I hoped to address these problems. With the
help of the young, hard-working staff, we began to clean up the markets,
make the assignments fair and enforce the producer-only rule. I proposed
that we provide electricity to help farmers sell meat, fish, and dairy
products in chilled display cases instead of on melting ice on hot summer
days - a common service to farmers and customers at the London markets. To
encourage business, I suggested that we publicize the chefs who bought
Greenmarket foods and farmers who sold to them, and give farmers a pamphlet
with marketing tips.

We also tried to recruit new farmers and find new foods like grass-fed
dairy, meat and eggs. With some markets offering only apples and sugary
baked goods in the winter, adding new local foods was essential. In London,
we recruited 130 producers in less than five years. After 28 years,
Greenmarket had only 170 producers. Instead of finding new farmers,
Greenmarket simply gave spaces at new markets to the same farmers. Farmers
in the Hudson Valley and around the region told me they had given up trying
to get into Greenmarket. They thought it was all sewn up.

Sadly, old habits die hard. These and other reforms were rejected. Bakers
and jam makers fought my proposal to require local fruits in pies and jam.
Hudson Valley apple farmers, oddly, were not in favor of requiring bakers to
use local apples. And powerful farmers continued to elbow out the
competition. Last Thanksgiving, for example, I discovered that the turkey
farmer who had sold at Union Square on Wednesdays for years was disinvited
by the person who makes market assignments on the Wednesday before
Thanksgiving - the biggest food shopping day of the year, when an estimated
65,000 people walked through the market. The usual Saturday turkey farmer, a
man with more clout, dropped in to grab the Thanksgiving trade.

In December I was fired. I never understood why. My boss even said the
Council on the Environment shared my vision for a vibrant Greenmarket.
Perhaps I was guilty of too much enthusiasm. If so, Greenmarket needed it.

I am lucky to live near three Greenmarkets, and I still buy my local foods
there. But I also still believe that if Greenmarket is to survive, it must
change. Back in 1976, Greenmarket was the only game in town. Chefs and food
lovers flocked to buy novelties like mesclun, wild mushrooms, heirloom
tomatoes and organic eggs.

New Yorkers have more choices now, and Greenmarket farmers complain of new
competition and shrinking sales. (Unlike many farmers markets, Greenmarket
does not track farm income.) With the appearance - if not the reality - of
small-farm values, national chains like Whole Foods are poised to dominate
the market. The next Whole Foods in New York is scheduled to open on Union
Square - just next door to the flagship Greenmarket.

What is to be done? Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner and Greenmarket's
biggest landlord, should demand more of Greenmarket for its use of public
space. When the department renegotiated Greenmarket's license last year, the
city did not call for other bids, because, as a parks official told me
during the negotiations, when I was still Greenmarket director, "Greenmarket
is different." But city rules say that sole-source procurement - when the
city hands a contract to a single bidder - can be used only when there is no
other option. And there are plenty of other farmers market organizers in the
city. (Note to readers: I'm not one of them.)

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should add his voice, too, calling for proposals
from authentic, producer-only farmers markets to bring local foods - not
Canadian cabbage - to public spaces all over New York. Let Greenmarket stay
where it is - and let other markets bloom on city property, too.

In London and Washington, where I still manage markets, we face competition
every day. Other market managers vie with us for farmers and neighborhood
sites. Because farmers and consumers have a choice, we work hard to serve
them. For too long, Greenmarket has been a monopoly. Unfortunately, it
behaves like one.

Right now, local farms are bursting with asparagus, watercress and rhubarb.
The best cream and butter come from cows grazed on spring's emerald grass.
Farmers want to sell these foods, and New Yorkers want to buy them. A New
York institution, once great, is failing them. Perhaps it is time
Greenmarket itself had some competition.


Nina Planck is the author of "The Farmers Market Cookbook" and the
forthcoming "Real Food."

Steve Sando
www.ranchogordo.com
New World Specialty Food






  • [Market-farming] NY Times: How New York's Greenmarket Went Stale, Steve Sando, 04/24/2004

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