I used to work and pass flyers out at a farmers market that was located in Coral Springs, a nice suburb. While walking around and checking out the vendors I noticed that a lot of the things they sold were like "gourmet organic". Like organic honey jars, French breads, organic dogs treats, etc.
There were a few fruit and vegetable vendors but most of the vendors were "special artisan" places. And some places were kind of steep!
Like the article implies, our method of food distribution is totally based off of our market economy; it goes where the money is.
It's important to realized that farmers markets aren't the only way to distribute food. They are a small slice in the organic pie of community food networks but they are an important part to help raise the capital needed to keep its roots growing.
Bobby, you write a great post discussing some of the difficulties in distributing food that farmers' markets face. You greatly challenged my naive belief that farmers' markets can do no wrong as you rightly point out that at some point, money can be a determining factor in keeping farmers in under-served communities. However, I do think that there have been steps to lessen this burden such as genesis of the Fresh Access Bucks program. As we have talked about in class, this program allows people to double their SNAP (up to 20 dollars) to buy florida fresh fruits and vegetables. This program does this without hurting the farmer, as the doubled dollars are supplemented through a grant program of the Florida Department of Health.
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