I just read through the Farmers Market Report released by King County last month. It's a thoughtful document, assembled after a series of surveys and interviews with vendors and administrators.
The report described an enterprise and a community in the midst of a challenging growth phase. Beginning farmers find it difficult to compete and get into old, established markets. Administrators of established markets feel that newer markets are cutting into their turf. Too many farmers are selling too many of the same crops, but there's also a perception that it's unfair for markets to admit newer farmers over more established growers even if this helps to create a more interesting and appealing product mix.
It's certainly challenging for new farms to break in, but most of the established farms took time to hit their stride as well. Newer farmers feel shut out of the bigger markets, but markets of this size didn't even exist when most of the established farmers were getting started. Everyone wants to vend at Ballard, but when I first started vending at Ballard it was the size of many of the smaller markets today.
It takes time to build a business, and it takes time to establish seniority. The same people who are saying that there are too many markets are also saying that it's too hard for newer farmers to find places to vend. New markets are ideal venues for new farmers who can't get into more established markets. I've seen various farmers achieve success at small markets simply by sticking around until other farmers with unreasonable expectations pulled out, leaving the best stalls for the folks with staying power.
Personally, I find this turmoil fascinating and exciting. Things will sort themselves out eventually, until there's a new growth spurt and we're faced with a whole new set of issues. It's a great problem to have.
1 comment:
Hey Devra,
I think there might actually be three types of markets in King County (or an infinite number, depending on how you define "type").
1. Big, well-established, weekend markets where vendors consistently do very well.
2. Smaller neighborhood markets that have a good vendor mix and loyal shoppers where vendors do pretty well.
3. Markets in some suburbs and smaller towns that struggle to attract the diverse vendor mix that a sustainable market needs in order to generate loyal customers.
From my startup farmer's perspective, we should try to incubate new farms by giving beginning farmers space at the type 1 markets where the most shopper dollars are. I think many of the type 2 markets have an appropriate balance between shoppers and the number of vendors, but at the type 3 markets the dollars may not be there for the first few years. Relegating new farmers/food businesses to these struggling markets hinders the growth of both new farmers and new markets.
If the thriving weekend markets in King County set aside space for a couple of startup farms each year that could provide enough cash flow for those farms to also attend a small, startup market and stick it out long enough to build a loyal customer base.
See you at the market!
Siri
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