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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] The Sunday Times: Farmers' markets sell 'supermarket' foods
  • Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 12:53:04 -0500


On Mar 2, 2011, at 11:44 AM, waldenfarm wrote:

OK, Allison. You're right about policing ourselves. But there is going to be some "public" entity that will want to get in on the act. Maybe the move to define & REASONABLY regulate real farmers markets should be initiated by farmers and we should have a strong voice in how it's done.

I'd be careful about definitions handed down from the government level -- remember that when the USDA took it on themselves to define "organic", they forbade anyone in the USA from setting higher standards for "organic" than the USDA set. We wanted them to set a floor under the word; they set both floor and ceiling at the same level.

Every local-only market I know of in this area defines "local" much more strictly than the language in the USA Federal food safety bill does, though not all are as strict as the 30 miles in the article from England. The USA is a big country, with a lot of difference in population density between states; definitions of "local" that are suitable for the Northeast may not be suitable for, say, Nevada -- so a national definition here isn't going to suit all parts of the country.

I'd rather tackle this on the education level, myself -- though I think there's a good deal to be said for requiring grocery stores to post their definition of local, and for requiring them to live up to it -- I'd like to see that for "home grown" also; I've seen groceries in this area selling big bins of "home grown" melons in May. While they may well have been grown on a piece of land that was also someone's home, I'm sure they weren't from a local small scale farmer, which I think is how they meant the customers to take it.

As far as individual markets -- the market has to have clear rules; a clear enforcement (and appeal) process; and the willingness to enforce these. If there's no market in the area that does, it may be possible to start one; though there may still be some areas where not enough customers or not enough potential vendors care about this to pull it off. Local-only markets should, in my opinion, advertise that fact up, down, and sideways.

It seems to me it should be possible to prosecute under existing false advertising laws any market, or vendor, who's selling wholesale produce as their own, or selling produce as "their neighbors' " when it actually came from a wholesale auction or the supermarket. The trick is teaching customers to ask where the stuff was grown. Publicity to that effect is a very good idea -- though I'd advise against naming a specific market or vendor who's reselling, at least unless you've got the proof to defend a potential libel suit.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale







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