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Farmers markets meeting food challenges

In this National Farmers Market week the Farmers Market Coalition is celebrating how dependable and resilient the markets are.

Coalition director Ben Feldman tells Brownfield farmers markets were there when the food supply chain was disrupted by the pandemic. Research shows three-percent of the U.S. population found farmers markets during that time.

“Out of over 300-million people that’s a lot of new shoppers at farmers markets and a big boost for us. The research suggests that about 30% of those people think that they’re going to continue shopping.”

But, he says the pandemic brought challenges to farmers markets. Many were left out of relief efforts for food system workers and some markets closed.

“They had to incur additional costs whether that was staff time to manage customer flow, new equipment – in some cases – hand washing stations or other crowd control equipment.”

Feldman calls farmers market vendors local food heroes and says there should be more government support of them.