City Pulse, MI
05-16-07
More than just produce: Capital-area markets offer fresh alternatives
Written by Marc Erbisch
It’s the time of year when the farmers and their customers strike up a
conversation that will go on for months.
From established institutions like the Meridian Township Farmers Market to
youngsters like the Allen Street Market (which opens today), opportunities to buy
fresh produce directly from growers seem to be sprouting up all over the greater
Lansing area.
Organizers like Grand Ledge Farmers Market committee member Terrance
Augustine want people to understand the markets can be more than a place
where goods are bought and sold.
“By facilitating a place where buyers and growers can talk, we hope we make
shoppers feel like they’re part of the growing process,” Augustine says.
Proponents claim farmers markets stimulate local economies, provide
consumers with fresher, healthier food and encourage a personal relationship
between farmers and buyers that is important to economic development.
Image
In demand: Shoppers peruse the goods at the Meridian Township Farmers
Market. The market, which started in a parking lot in 1974, has outgrown its
pavilion behind the township hall. (E.J. Jocque/City Pulse)
Studies have confirmed many of the positive effects. The University of Guelph in
Ontario and Iowa State University have both shown that farmers markets are
effective at creating jobs and keeping money in local economies.
All farmers markets are meant to do these things, but the parts that individual
markets choose to emphasize vary across the board. Although the shopping
experiences may not be terribly different, the things that go on behind the scenes
can be.
The Capital City area is home to several farmers markets and a city market that
is working to model itself after one. Each of the markets were founded for
different reasons and at different times to meet the needs of their specific
communities. They have all faced unique challenges and aim to do something a
little bit different.
What many of the markets do have in common is that they’re only open one or
two days a week May through October, some or all of what is sold must be
produced locally and communities are happy to have them. In their own way,
each of the Lansing-area markets are working to bring healthier foods, a
healthier economy and healthier communities to Mid-Michigan.
New in town
The organizers of Williamston’s farmers market are on a mission to improve the
city’s downtown by boosting the number of people who walk through it. Alison
Alfredson, Williamston’s director of community development, hopes the
increased traffic will improve business and create a social gathering place. The
market has been in a different location every year since its inception in 2004, but
the emphasis on the downtown area has remained the same.
Alfredson explains that through a few restrictions placed on farmers, the
Williamston market aims to support only local growers and locally produced
goods.
“Everything must come from Michigan, and it must be produced by the farmers
themselves,” Alfredson says.
Ninety percent of the goods farmers sell must be grown on their own farms,
which means only a small amount of what is sold can be goods purchased and
resold by the farmers. Produce must be labeled as locally grown or organic, and
farmers are encouraged not to price goods lower than Felpausch Food Center,
Williamston’s local grocery store.
“We don’t go around policing the farmers,” Alfredson says. “It’s a trust thing, and
they respect it.”
The farmers adhere to the rules because the market was designed to cater to
their needs and wishes. Alfredson circulated a questionnaire to local farmers
when the market was still in the planning stages to find out if there was interest in
the idea and when and if farmers could participate. Responses were positive and
it was determined that Thursday was the best market day.
Despite the optimistic responses, Alfredson says the market has faced a rocky
first few years, and attracting and maintaining both vendors and shoppers has
proved to be a delicate balancing act.
“Farmers don’t want to come unless there will be buyers, and shoppers won’t
come unless there will be farmers,” she says.
Shoppers have also had to familiarize themselves with the different growing
seasons and the fact that they can’t get certain items year round like they could
in a grocery store.
“It’s taken some time for shoppers to understand that some things only grow
during specific seasons,” Alfredson says. “People show up looking for one thing,
and when it’s not there they get upset, but it’s also an opportunity for people to
discover new things, like leeks.” (The mild member of the onion family is one of
many items farmers markets offer that may not be commonly available elsewhere
in addition to the same produce items available in a grocery store, such as
carrots, potatoes, squash, apples, berries and tomatoes.)
As a result of the unstable success, the market has moved every year, but
Williamston isn’t giving up on the concept. “Every year we try to understand our
customers a little better,” Alfredson says.
The veteran
Meridian Township opened its farmers market in a parking lot in 1974 and has
never looked back. After a successful first season, the township received a grant
to build a multi-use pavilion in 1975 that would house the market in the summer
and be available for other activities throughout the rest of the year.
Meridian Township Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Eckhart Dersch
says although the first season went very well it was uncertain if the market would
be able to keep it up, so the pavilion was designed so that it could be used for
other events if the market fell through.
More than 30 years later, the pavilion, located behind the Meridian Township
Hall, is too small to contain the township’s growing market.
“We’ve never had a down time, Dersch says. “Every year has been better than
the last.” Dersch estimates about $20,000 worth of produce is sold every week
the market is open and about $500,000 worth is sold over the course of the
season.
Each of the 45 available stalls is consistently filled, and LuAnn Maisner, parks
and recreation director for Meridian Township, says the market has had to turn
away vendors due to a lack of space.
The market was started in response to a community survey that the Parks and
Recreation Department carried out in 1973. The goal was to identify what the
public wanted most from the department.
“We thought people would want hiking trails or picnic pavilions,” Dersch says.
“We were really surprised to find out that what people wanted was a farmers
market.”
So the local government acted to meet the community’s demand.
Like Williamston’s market there are a few restrictions in place on sellers in
Meridian. All new vendors must grow all of their own produce and vendors must
label everything they sell as organic, homegrown or otherwise, so buyers know
exactly where their purchases are coming from.
Maisner and Dersch see the market a great community gathering spot that has
helped put the local government in a positive light.
“Most people associate Town Hall with taxes,” Dersch says. “But when they go to
the farmers market right behind it, they can associate Town Hall with something
positive.”
Young and successful
In the 1990s there was a wave of research conducted surrounding “food
deserts,” a name given to areas where there is limited access to healthy foods.
Around that same time the Allen Street Neighborhood recruited Brian Thomas,
then a graduate student at Michigan State University, to look into the
phenomenon in their area.
The Lansing neighborhood, located southeast of Sparrow Hospital, had
conducted a hunger survey and found nearly 30 percent of neighborhood
residents didn’t have enough to eat. Thomas combined that data with a map
detailing the distribution of places residents could buy fresh produce and found
that there was nowhere to shop within a one-to-two mile radius of the
neighborhood. Making that distance even more problematic was the fact that
many residents didn’t own a car, which made getting to the produce difficult. It
seemed like Allen Street was in a food desert of its own, Thomas says.
One way the neighborhood responded to the problem was with a farmers market.
A pilot program for the market was run from August through October 2004 and
was deemed a success, says market manager Kate Nault. The number of
shoppers increased throughout the summer and vendors were selling the
produce they brought.
The next year the market was open for a full season, May to October, and there
was an average of five to seven vendors and 200 shoppers at every market. The
following year, the number of vendors and buyers doubled, and the success is
expected to continue this season, Nault says.
The Allen Street market is meant not only to provide fresh produce to its
residents, but also help area farmers. The market is limited exclusively to
Michigan vendors, many of whom come directly from the tri-county area. The
farmers are only allowed to sell goods they produce themselves. The goal is to
feed as many people in the neighborhood as possible while supporting the local
economy. Farmer Jane Bush of AppleSchram Organic Orchard has been
attending the Allen Street market from the start. She says the decision to sell
there just made sense.
Bush, a farmer for 20 years, originally tried to sell her apples and cider from an
on-farm market but wasn’t entirely happy with the routine.
“People want entertainment when they visit a farm,” Bush says. “It’s not in my
personality to do that. I just wanted to grow apples and I didn’t want to present a
facade to my customers for what a farm really is.”
When Allen Street decided to open its market, Bush says they aggressively
recruited her and other farmers, and she liked what the organizers had to offer.
“The move made sense economically and ecologically,” Bush says. “Instead of
75 cars driving out to my farm once a week, I drive my one truck to the market.”
Making a Comeback
Lansing City Market is one of the city’s oldest establishments. Located on the
corner of Cedar and Shiawassee streets, the market isn’t a technically a farmers
market, but market supervisor Nick Hughes would like it to be modeled after one.
Established in 1909, the market is coming up on a century of business and just
recently started to show its age. Unlike a traditional farmers market that typically
operates one or two days each week for five or six months out of the year, the
City Market is open year-round for four days a week. The market faces some
unique challenges that most farmers markets do not.
“We’re open 40 hours a week, and it’s impossible to get a farmer to come for that
long,” Hughes says. “That makes recruiting growers really hard.”
As a result of the difficulty maintaining vendors and declining sales numbers, the
market has been on the city’s chopping block for the past 10 years, Hughes says.
“There were even customers who came in and were surprised to find out we
were still open,” he says.
Fortunately the outlook is starting to improve. Despite the rough times, things
have gotten better for the City Market in the past year and a half.
“We have twice as many growers coming this year, and we’re going to offer
some new things this summer,” Hughes says.
This summer the market will have a vendor who sells seafood and another that
sells all-natural, Michigan-raised meats — meat from animals that were not given
growth hormones or steroids.
The vendors have also been reorganized. The market has been divided into
seasonal and permanent vendors, with seasonal vendors on the east side of the
market and permanent vendors on the west. The east side now closes for part of
the year, shutting down in January and opening again in April, similar to a true
farmers market.
The west side will stay open all year, and house retailers such as Hill’s Home
Cured Cheese and Otto’s Chicken. The goal of these changes is to make the
east side of the market feel more like a farmers market, Hughes says.
Even though the market has faced troubles in the past, Hughes is confident
about its future.
“We offer things that no farmers market can,” he says. “We have more space and
we’re open year round.”
Hughes also notes that as more farmers start using cold weather growing
technology, the market could be the place to sell in the winter.
“People shouldn’t eat healthy for only four to five months a year,” he says.
Testing the waters
Wes Clark, of Clark Sugarbush Farm, has been selling his produce in Old Town
for a while, but this year things are a little bit different. Earlier this month, Clark
was joined by four other farmers for the grand opening of Old Town’s first official
farmers market.
Old Town Commercial Association executive director Jamie Schriner-Hooper
says she hopes the market will expand throughout the summer and that more
growers will participate. The farmers markets will be held on the first Sunday of
every month to coincide with the already popular First Sunday Gallery Walk. The
pairing will hopefully lead to greater numbers of shoppers at each market since
people already in the neighborhood for art can now stop and pick up some fresh
produce.
But the organizers aren’t rushing into anything yet. By holding the market once a
month, the association hopes to maximize the number of people at each market
and to expand as the demand grows.
The demand already exists among the storeowners in Old Town. SchrinerHooper says they have been asking for a regular market for years. Since the
shops in the area all sell and emphasize unique, local products they want to add
food to the list of things residents can find in the neighborhood, she says.
The association has been looking to start the market for some time, but with
Allen Street and other popular markets nearby it was difficult finding a time when
farmers and shoppers would come, Schriner-Hooper says.
“We don’t want to take up too much of the farmers’ time,” Schriner-Hooper says.
“They need to be out in the fields growing.”
Under new management
The DeWitt farmers market’s Web site boasts the organizers’ intentions for this
season with the slogan of “Building a bigger Market for DeWitt.”
This is the fifth season DeWitt has held a farmers market, and the first that it will
be open every week Last year there were a few more Saturdays included in the
season, and this summer the market will step it up weekly markets. New market
manager Leanne Roman hopes other improvements will soon follow.
The increase in market days has been accompanied by an increase in vendors
as well; the first market of the season hosted 17 vendors, selling everything from
arts and crafts to fresh produce.
There is only one restriction placed on vendors in DeWitt: They must produce at
least 10 percent of what they sell. Roman believes that for most farmers the
actual percentage is closer to 90.
“We let the farmers sell things they didn’t grow, because they bring in things that
you can’t find seasonally in Michigan, like peaches,” Roman says.
Although there isn’t a restriction placed on where the farmers can come from,
they are still all local. Roman says the vendor who travels the farthest comes
from Flint to sell cut flowers.
The market is also self-sustaining. Originally subsidized by the DeWitt Downtown
Development Authority, it is now able to run completely off of the fees vendors
pay to participate. Although the market began on somewhat shaky ground,
shoppers have responded very positively, and Romany says it is the highest
rated event the city sponsors. With live musical acts and a magician scheduled to
perform throughout the summer, the market also doubles as a social center.
Goal-oriented
Grand Ledge has goals in mind for its farmers market and its mission this
summer is to is to get the food off of the road and onto the table.
Augustine emphasizes the importance of buying and eating locally to the city of
Grand Ledge.
“People think a lot about the high gas prices,” Augustine says. “But do people
think about the cost of shipping a tomato to Michigan from California? We have
some of the greatest soil in the country here, and buying food that has been
grown locally keeps that money in the community.”
The market has a new slogan this year to help drive the point home: “Food Less
Traveled.”
Grand Ledge’s market has been in operation for years, Augustine says, and it
has seen a lot of ups and downs, even closing during a particularly bad summer.
At the beginning of last year’s season, Roxanne Mills took over the farmers
market, and with the help of half a dozen other people, including Augustine, the
market has seen a lot of improvements, including more vendors and a steady
return of shoppers.
Six farmers are signed up for every market this summer, and Augustine expects
between six and 12 vendors each week.
Augustine says another goal of the committee is to make the market an event the
whole family can enjoy. There will be t-shirts on sale this summer, along with live
entertainment and a couple of informational demonstrations, including one on
how to make wine. There is even talk of local chefs stopping by to do some
cooking.
The committee is looking to expand the market, Augustine says, but a limited
budget is making things difficult. All of the funding for the market comes from the
fees vendors pay to attend and without more vendors there won’t be a bigger
budget.
“It’s a Catch 22,” Augustine says. “We can’t get more customers without more
vendors, and we can’t get more vendors without more customers.”
Augustine hopes some of the new features offered at the market will help to draw
a larger shopping crowd and that the philosophy of buying locally will stimulate
interest.
“We’re hoping people will realize that by taking away the distance food travels
and the middlemen who sell it, we’re saving money,” Augustine says.
In the end, the goals that Augustine and other market organizers in Grand Ledge
are working toward are the goals of every farmers market in the area. The desire
to bring fresh produce to local communities and support local growers is what
keeps every market alive.