NORTH END — In a world of global business, “buy local” has become a rallying cry as cities and small towns try to hold on to jobs and a community identity. In North Kitsap, local farmers markets have become an important part of that effort.
In the last 100 years, the agriculture industry has produced mind-boggling economies of scale, but experts say the side effect has been the increased degradation in the nutritional value of what we eat. Our society trades health for affordability, but found itself trapped in a system where the nutritional value of food has been steadily falling.
“It has much to do with food safety and freshness,” said Clint Dudley of Dudley Farm who manages the Kingston Farmers Market. “What you want is one farmer handing food to one customer at a time. Getting people to understand the importance of that is difficult.”
Agricultural conglomerates present a number of safety issues because of the number of people who handle the food before it ever reaches the customer.
“Think how different it is to have your celery picked by one set of hands, boxed by another, shipped by another, re-boxed into a different container when it arrives, another set of hands ships and unloads to the store and then one more set of hands sets it out for purchase. By contrast, our local farmer picks it himself and then hands it to you at the market,” Dudley said.
With less hands involved, and less shipping, food is safer and generally more fresh and nutritious, he said.
Small growers typically use two venues to sell their produce directly: farmers markets or a community supported-agriculture model. Most begin by selling through a farmers market even if they plan to become a CSA later on.
The idea of bringing farmers together into the modern version of a roadside stand sounds simple enough, but market farmers face hurdles now that didn’t exist 50 years ago. Dudley explained that he must follow the same rules as large growing conglomerates even though the potential risks of contamination for a direct market farmer are so much lower.
“If you sell directly on your farm, however, those rules do not apply, which is one reason small farms using a community supported agriculture model have increased,” he said.
Getting a market off the ground can also be discouraging at first, said Jackie Aitchison, manager of Poulsbo Farmers Market and executive director of the Washington State Farmers Market Association.
“It take three to five years to get a market established,” she said. “It’s a cycle. If you don’t have customers, vendors don’t want to come, but if you don’t have vendors, customers don’t want to come.”
But when a market can hold out through the growth curve, it can experience significant growth. Poulsbo’s customers, for instance, increased 20 percent or more last year to about 650 per market day, and this year the market is seeing 800-plus.
“Once you have the traffic, it’s much easier to recruit quality vendors,” Aitchison said.
With all the rules and regulations for business and agriculture, market managers and seasoned vendors must often help newcomers understand how to go about becoming a retailer, said Alan Trunkey, manager of the fledgling Suquamish Farmers Market.
“What gets charged for sales tax, having the right licenses, complying with health district rules. Where can I sell eggs? Can I sell honey?” he said.
Another hurdle is having all the equipment needed to run the business, said Heidi Kaster, owner of Dragonfly Farms Nursery, the nursery that hosts the Hansville Summer Market.
“I think some of the difficulties when starting out are purchasing materials and getting organized. At our market we help each other and some of the vendors even share tents,” Kaster said.
But market managers say that attracting customers is the most difficult part for a new market. By far the best advertising for markets friends and family talking it up, according to Aitchison. The WFMA did a state-wide survey and found “word of mouth” was the best method for people to learn about a market. “It’s vital to make a good first impression to get that going,” Aitchison said.
Small producers often discover that competing against low-cost food from supermarket chains also means finding ways to differentiate their products. Better nutritional value is often not enough of a selling point.
“Farmers markets are great as business incubators,” said Susan Harrington, owner of Labyrinth Hill Farm in Hansville, who sells at different markets around North Kitsap. “It gives a farmer the chance to learn about what their customers want, who their competitors are and how they can add value to their products to make a higher profit.”
But Dudley wonders if additions come with their own set of challenges.
“When farmers realize a value-added product will make more money, they usually try it out. Instead of selling berries directly, for instance, the farmer might make it into jam to sell, but then that takes the food one step further away from that direct farmer-to-customer route that is the bottom line for the market,” he said.
But he agrees markets must find a balance that will draw customers. Markets often have performances or contests, for example, to help draw customers, but managers must walk a fine line between being a farmers market or becoming a festival.
“As you begin to stage events, the organization can become more and more complicated, and more and more bureaucratic. We like to keep our market as simple as we can so it has the fewest rules we can live with and still function,” Dudley said.
Farmers markets also help build community, a function that managers can’t overlook.
“Being in touch with the community is such a big part of our farmers market as it is everywhere, I believe,” Dudley said. “It’s a place where you are likely to run into friends you haven’t seen during the week and there’s plenty of room to sit on the grass and catch up. The personal contact of farmer to customers is important, but so is the direct contact of neighbor to neighbor. That’s part of the ethos that makes farmers markets such an important part of their community. And with time, it’s the ultimate draw.”
