Farmers markets: a great way to build the city

On a recent sunny Saturday morning at the Old Salem Cobblestone Farmers Market, couples checked out plump purple eggplant while their youngsters in strollers licked ice cream cones. A young woman stopped by the Beta Verde booth with a list of preserves and jams to pick up for her mother, and a few folks relaxed as they listened to a musician playing a rendition of Sesame Street's theme song.

 

Vendor Stephanie Karadzhov sold out of her fresh sunflowers, lilies, dahlias and zinnias by 10:45 a.m., except for one dainty bouquet. Before noon, only a few samples of goat cheese remained at Heritage Homestead's booth.

It was a good day at the market.

Nestled near historic buildings, the Old Salem Market is "hip but quaint," said Margaret Norfleet Neff, who with her daughter, Salem Norfleet Neff, manages the Old Salem market and publicizes the Downtown Cobblestone Farmers Market. The pair also owns Beta Verde.

"You actually get to know the farmers. You can ask them questions. Our vendors have followings," Margaret Norfleet Neff said.

The Cobblestone name brand means that the food is locally grown, grown without pesticides and sold by the growers — something that's verified at both Cobblestone venues. The Cobblestone Farmers Market Downtown on Tuesdays is hosted by Piedmont Triad Research Park, and the Old Salem Cobblestone Farmers Market is hosted by Old Salem Museums & Gardens. They are a project of Cultivate Piedmont, a program of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Cultivate Piedmont's programs, which include the Cobblestone farmers markets, community education and outreach, are supported in part by a multiyear grant from the Winston-Salem Foundation.

In its first year of operation, the Old Salem Cobblestone Farmers Market was ranked 11th by U.S. News Travel on its list of best farmers markets, along with prestigious farmers markets in cities like Austin, Boulder, Seattle, and Portland.

According to information provided by the nonprofit Farmers Market Coalition, the number of farmers markets across the country has grown approximately 170 percent since 2000, and those farmers markets boost spending at neighborhood businesses. The coalition cites a 2010 study of the Easton Farmers Market in Pennsylvania, which found that 70 percent of farmers market customers are also shopping at downtown businesses. It reports that Boise, Idaho's Capital City Public Market generated an estimated $4.5 million in economic activity for the local economy in 2011 and that the 52 producers of the Williamsburg Farmers Market in Virginia generated an estimated $48,969 in state sales tax in 2011.

"We're trying so hard to create a very strong marketplace where producers thrive and our local economy thrives because we're buying and selling and moving it in our own communities," Margaret Norfleet Neff said. "We hear consistently their prices are very fair. They should be if there's no middle person."

Fresh food options

The city did not hold a downtown market this year due to declining participation by vendors and customers. It has focused its effort on the Dixie Classic Farmers Market on the fairgrounds, a year-round Saturday market that began in 1973 and has added special events, such as cooking demonstrations and contests throughout the summer. The year-round market has more than 40 vendors selling such items as fruits and vegetables, home-canned goods, and free-range and grass-fed meats.

It also sells produce that is purchased beyond the surrounding counties and resold, said fair director David Sparks. Signs mark the distinction between food produced locally, regionally and elsewhere. Those who resell produce typically purchase it from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and sometimes Georgia, as different crops ripen earlier further south.

In its third summer, the Reynolda Village Farmers Market opens at 8 a.m. Fridays and will continue as long as farmers have produce to sell and the weather cooperates, said market manager Betty Nifong. All of the 18 vendors are local. It draws approximately 200 customers on average, she said. On a recent Friday, a farmer sold ears of corn that had been picked at 6 a.m. that morning.

"We just encourage people to buy local," Nifong said. Talk to the farmers and thank them for their hard work, she said. "Farming is a gamble."

All of the farmers markets seem to be thriving.

"With more markets available, more people are learning to buy local for the economic, health and nutrition benefits," Sparks said. "It's going to spur even more activity. There's not a finite number of people who will buy local food."

Connie Bhimireddy, 30, of Kernersville, who stopped recently at the downtown Cobblestone market with her two young sons, said she shops there because she wants local food as opposed to "industrialized" food.

She said she appreciates being able to talk to the farmers to learn how they raise their crops.

For Megan Gambill, the market is convenient — just two miles from her home.

"I like buying local produce, anything to support the local economy," said Gambill, 34.

Ralph Womble, retired chief executive officer of Hanes Companies, enjoys not only the fresh produce, but how it brings different people together.

The market is "one of the true social capital builders," Womble said. "It's a great way to build the city."

Local markets support young farmers like Cory Brandt, 29, who operates Bethania Bottoms farm. In 2007, he started growing butternut squash, Cherokee purple tomatoes and popcorn. This is his first year selling at a farmers market, which supplements the income from his farm, so that someday soon he will be able to earn a living from farming. He still works construction jobs three days a week in addition to full-time farming. He and his wife, Kayla, have three children ages 5, 3 and almost 1.

"I just felt kind of lost growing up in high school; I cared about the environment," he said. He interned at an organic farm in Kentucky.

"Staying in that one place and working every day soothed my soul. Working the land was a new experience for me. I found gratitude like I'd never found before…I had meaning in my life," Brandt said.

The path to success

Salem Norfleet Neff cites the Carrboro Farmers' Market as an example of a thriving market. It opened in 1979 and has more than 80 vendors whose products are all local, pesticide-free and animal-welfare approved.

On average, Carrboro's Saturday market draws 4,500 shoppers, and Wednesday markets average 1,800, Carrboro market manager Sarah Blacklin said in an e-mail. Organizers surveyed their customers, and most fell in the age range of 21 to 35. Sixty-five percent of customers surveyed shopping at the market report that they also shop at nearby businesses while they are in town.

"Community support is obviously critical to the success of any market," Blacklin said. "But there are a lot of other factors at play that can help garner more community support."

Markets must balance vendors and products, location, mission/values, relationships within the community, promotion, economics and investment in the market.

Before the Old Salem farmers market opened, the Beta Verde team met with 50 to 60 businesses, neighborhood representatives and restaurants. They worked with a steering committee of committed volunteers.

"We want people to feel like it's their market," Salem Norfleet Neff said. They regularly e-mail statistics to farmers. In three months, the Old Salem market has grown from 1,100 to 1,400 shoppers. They began with 21 vendors and have since added five more.

"People are really looking for that knowledge of the origin of their food, and they're willing to search for it," said Jason Thiel, president of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership. "The farmers markets have been an idea for creating an interest in downtown for quite some time."

To support local farmers, people need to eat seasonally. Consumers shouldn't expect local farmers to have strawberries in the cold of winter because that's not when they grow here, Margaret Norfleet Neff said.

"We're in it for the long haul in a sense of creating a marketplace that will be here for generations that will keep building on itself," she said.

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