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  • From: Beth Spaugh <eas9 AT cornell.edu>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] RE: Farm Market ideas
  • Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:22:08 -0500

Does anyone in your group have writing skills? If so, are they willing to do a weekly newspaper column about fresh food issues or a diary of a market grower? They might even get paid a little money.

Similarly, anyone giving presentations at Rotary, Kiwanis, churches, etc? If a corporate ag area, they are probably very aware of the demise of small farms and the impact on the community. Present market gardens as one small way to fight that trend. Talk about the health benefits of fresh food. Community food security vs relying on imports. Etc. Maybe even present ideas to spark debate. Does your most local paper have a sympathetic food editor? If so, maybe she will do a What's fresh column with simple recipes. Vendors might donate produce for her to work with.


At 05:52 PM 3/10/2005 +0000, you wrote:
&gt; Wow- Some great ideas so far, but surprisingly few! I'd love to hear a
&gt; few more from folks with well-established, well-advertised markets.

I'm really enjoying this thread and would also like to hear from these groups. This is our second year to have a farmers market, and although pleased with the first year, I'd really, really like to see ideas concerning growth. We have several obstacles which I would hope would be unique only to our community: the city council is grumpy and well-known to not work with "new" ideas - we are not allowed to have a banner across the street all season, we are not allowed to move any of the city benches to the side street where we hold the market, etc. etc. The local health inspector will not allow anybody to sell eggs. He will charge $50 inspection fee for anybody who wants to cook anything, per vendor (this is very steep for our demographics). Our clientele is what I refer to as an "iceburg" crowd - ya know, iceburg lettuce, won't touch anything else. We have a terrible time trying to find enough produce vendors - it's almost like everybody struggled growing up, and now they don't want anything to do with raising their own food (it's also a highly corporate-ag area.) There's something going on with WIC, apparently a county has to apply for it and we don't? Somebody's checking that out. Newspaper coverage is better than I expected, and some freebie radio stuff.

There are always ways to work around things though, we just have to be creative while not stepping on toes (although the county seat, it is a small community). So please keep the suggestions flowing :-) I'm reading the New Farmers Market, which is really, really interesting.

DebM


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Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead
66 Jabez Allen Road
Peru NY 12972





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