As early morning sunlight breaks over Union Square Park in Manhattan, dozens of farmers are setting up tents and tables to display handpicked produce, free-range poultry, and homemade baked goods. Rick Field presides over a rainbow of pickled vegetables, from the crimson of cayenne string beans to the deep gold of curried green tomatoes. Although he's technically at work on a Saturday, he says that interacting with customers is so much fun he feels like it's a day off.
In New York City and elsewhere across the U.S. and Canada, farmers markets are the fastest growing sector of the food economy. There were approximately 1,200 of them in the mid-1990s, but there are nearly 5,000 now. They exist in every region, and the majority of them operate year-round, even in the north.
The bustling, colorful gatherings give consumers access to the freshest of edibles, often produced with minimal chemicals. They also shorten the food chain, providing an environmentally sensible way to get flavorful food to the table. But most of all, such markets offer up a vital sense of community. The ambience, along with genuine connection to farmers and familiarity with their food production practices, might make farmers markets the single most important factor in restoring trust in the country's food supply.
Food has always been a savory source of social connection. Consider the agora. As the center of Greek public life, the marketplace in ancient Athens spawned the world's first democracy.
From the beginning of the agricultural age to the mid-20th century, the majority of our food came from local farms. Following World War II, the mass cultivation of durable produce in a few locations enabled distribution countrywide to warehouse-like supermarkets. Food shopping became a less frequent event, driven largely by price and other "rational" economic considerations.
Over several decades, taste and quality—and, eventually, nutrition and food safety—were sacrificed to efficiencies of production, including produce monoculture, which weakened crop health. As food anthropologist Amy Trubek points out, America produces a great array of potato chips but only a few varieties of potato.
At some point—perhaps when antibiotics were needed to counter the effects of mass housing of animals—the efficiencies gained by industrialization began yielding diminishing returns. Today, recalls of contaminated meat and produce occur with alarming frequency.
More subtly, however, industrial farming ruptured the rich web of cultural experiences traditionally tied to food—conviviality, a sense of connection, knowledge of food vendors, trust in the provenance of food, and links to the past. Increasingly, consumers crave the personal touch in food shopping and see farmers markets as the way to restore it.
Geographer Robert Feagan surveyed a hundred shoppers at a farmers market in Ontario, Canada. He found that despite having only moderate income, the shoppers were not deterred by the slightly higher prices of farmers markets. When it comes to food, value proves to involve much more than sheer price.
Nor did Feagan's consumers fully endorse environmental matters like organic production or concerns about how far their food had to travel, although such factors are often touted as prime reasons for shopping at farmers markets. However noble, the abstract reasons are not as mouth-watering as more palpable factors like social engagement and fresh flavor.
"It's fresh produce, it's local, especially in the summertime," says one shopper. "And I like the ambience, I like the atmosphere. It's very personal. It's about being healthy. You're buying healthier food because it's directly from the field."
"It's the whole social aspect, and the culture of eating," says another.
"We know a lot of the vendors," another shopper told Feagan. "And there is interesting interaction, and you are able to talk to them while you're buying your food—it makes them part of your life. It's a social activity, just a great experience."
"Supermarkets are busy places that aren't conducive to conversations," says Feagan, a professor of contemporary studies at Wilfred Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario. Indeed, sociologists have found that patrons have 10 times more conversations in farmers markets than in conventional supermarkets.
Farmers are enjoying the resurgence of direct marketing, too. It provides regular income. Many build loyal followings and are able to field and respond to direct consumer requests.
Shopper interaction with food producers can also sweeten the experience of eating. Farmers are often good sources of tips for simple but scrumptious food preparation. The predominance of fruits and vegetables—as compared to conventional markets—encourages consumption of foods that boost health and protect against such chronic diseases as diabetes and heart disease.
Anthropologist Trubek, author of A Taste of Place and professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Vermont, proposes that the opportunity to pick out fresh ingredients for a meal makes people particularly thoughtful about the genuine pleasures of food. The buying of a just-picked sprig of rosemary rivets attention on the taste of that dish of pasta you have in mind for dinner tonight.
Have the Harvest Delivered
Want the freshness of local, seasonal food but don't have time to get to the farmers market? Local farmers will prepare baskets of food they've grown and drop one off at your doorstep.
It's called community-supported agriculture, and it's another way farmers sell their produce directly to consumers and develop a relationship with them. A farmer offers to a consumer a certain number of "shares" in his crops. And then each week, sometimes year-round, the consumer gets delivery of his quota of fresh fruits and vegetables.
