NEW YORK--It's a bitter November day, rain pelting down, the thermometer at 39 degrees. But the scene is wall-to-wall people at the Union Square Greenmarket, replete with stands of 70 farmers from across the New York metropolitan region. Already, says Henry Drew of Knoll Krest farms north of Poughkeepsie, he's sold 350 chickens--"free range, no antibiotics, no hormones, no cages.'' Even at noon on this Saturday, Drew has had buyers for an astounding 1,200 dozen eggs. Lots of his customers, to avoid the long lines, e-mail their orders in advance.
Nearby, Mike Anthony, celebrated co-chef of Greenwich Village's upscale Blue Hill Restaurant, is packing 20 bags of fresh produce into the back of a yellow taxi. "We come here three times a week and pick up whatever entices us,'' says Anthony. "Chefs are getting closer and closer to the farms. People want to know where and how their food was grown.''
Predictably, the chefs--and regular homeowners--get to know the farmers. Take Alex Paffenroth, who farms 72 acres of "muckland'' with organic soil in Orange County, N.Y. Today Paffenroth is offering 12 varieties of potatoes, four of carrots, four of beets and five of radishes.
Rare is the supermarket that even approaches such variety--and flavor choice. Which helps to explain the nationwide boom in farmers' markets.
From 800 in the mid-1980s, the countrywide total has soared to 3,100, according to their super-promoter, August Schumacher, currently a Kellogg Foundation consultant and formerly Massachusetts agriculture secretary and undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Why this radical expansion of traditional markets, even while the big grocery chains, masters of shrink-wrapped marketing, blanket the nation? Schumacher offers three explanations.
First, people do like the personal connection with a farmer they can look in the eye. To want to know the food they buy is truly fresh and flavorful (the polar opposite of frozen burritos or plastic-packed tomatoes). Many are suspicious of agribusiness and the corporate food supply chains. And their loyalty seems great: once a market starts up, it rarely fails.
Second, markets are extending their seasons well beyond the traditional July to September, tomatoes-to-apples run. Now, as farmers adjust their technology and crop mix, markets often run March to Thanksgiving. A few are open all year long.
And much more has become available, too--from cheeses to fruits, fresh flowers to just-baked breads, fish to vegetables to buffalo steaks. Not to mention a profusion of community arts and crafts on the side.
Third, markets are an exquisite form of community--a way to see your neighbors, chat informally, get up on community news. On a brilliant Montana Saturday morning this August, I had a chance to walk with former Mayor Dan Kemmis through the Missoula Farmers Market. Kemmis seemed to know--and be known by--everyone. But it was the warmth of the personal exchanges that impressed me.
Plus, the ethnic diversity. As Asians and Hispanics flood into American communities from Miami to Missoula, sometimes starting farm operations, the markets provide an opening for spontaneous and natural contact among older and newer population groups.
It's not unusual, Schumacher reports, for 10,000 people--from bank presidents to brand-new immigrants--to pack the Des Moines Farmers Market on a Saturday. And the markets thrive in smaller towns, too: Iowa has 99 counties, but 123 farmers markets.
Markets are popular urban revival tools. The Union Square Greenmarket, for example, has restored health to a square plagued in earlier years by drug dealers and hordes of "undesirables.''
A "Great Markets, Great Cities'' conference brought market operatives from all across America to New York this month. The Project for Public Spaces, co-sponsors with the Ford Foundation, spiced up the event with awards for leading markets across the continent. The City Market in Kansas City, on the same site since 1857, carried off the top prize.
But a passel of others were represented. The Broadway Market in Buffalo, an emporium of global exotic delicacies founded by East European immigrants 111 years ago. Washington's brand new and very popular FreshMarket at DuPont Circle, fresh produce atop a Metro station. Seattle's fabled Pike Place Market and the indomitable Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, where scrapple, cheesecakes, chocolate-covered pretzels and prime local ice cream are still in vogue. And then the Vietnamese Market in New Orleans, where 20 vendors start out at 5 a.m. each Saturday to sell chili, okra grass, snow peas, live ducks, rabbits and chickens, raised on a 40-acre "wasteland'' right next door.
Yet, says Schumacher, a lot of small markets need start-up cash. He says $20 million in yearly federal aid--``what we give a single big California cotton farmer''--could boost the market total to 5,000 by mid-decade.
How about it?
Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.
(c) 2002, The Washington Post Writers Group
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