The Market Basket - What do YOU Want From Your Farmers?
Posted by Sheryl Kirby in editorials, market basket on August 15, 2007 at 7:14 am
The trend of eating locally, while nothing new for many people, seems to have brought some additional concerns with its renewed popularity. Maybe it’s the necessary role food plays in our lives, but we as consumers seem to want a lot more from our food shopping experience than any other shopping we do. Where we are encouraged to get to know the people selling and creating the food we eat, this philosophy doesn’t seem to extend toward other items we purchase. No one is insisting we develop an ongoing relationship with our real estate agent, or form a “community” with the salegirls from the Gap. Heck, for that matter, the “buy local” trend seems to go no further than food, as the same people who search out wheat grown within a 100-mile radius have no qualms whatsoever about wearing yoga pants made in China, or shoes that have come from Italy.
No, we have a twisted and sometimes perverse relationship with food and with the act of procuring said food. We’re no longer content to just go, shop and bring the stuff home. Now we need events, family-friendly activities, entertainment, a sense of community and added value. That’s a lot for your average farmer and a table of tomatoes to live up to.
My rant stems from two articles that ran in the Toronto Star this past weekend. In the first, Mike Schriener from Local Food Plus assesses two separate farmer’s markets; the old faithful Nathan Phillips Square, held on Wednesday mornings, and the new upstart organic market held at the Brickworks on Saturday mornings. I’ll not touch on Schreiner’s assessment of conventional versus organic, as that’s a whole other can of worms. Because what I really want to concentrate on here is what he refers to as “ambiance”. He docks the City Hall market for the fact that, “Vendors should tell you more about products and there is no music and nothing for kids.”
Now farmers aren’t always a talkative lot, but I’ve always been able to get information out of the ones I deal with at Nathan Phillips Square – if I ask. As for music, Shreiner must have missed the big signs all around the square trumpeting “Fresh Wednesdays”, where a different band takes to the stage each Wednesday Market Day – at lunch time, when it’s busiest. Which is why some of us hit the market at 8:30am when it opens - I certainly don’t want to have to listen to some trio massacre “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak, which I was subjected to at the Liberty Village market on Sunday. Market shopping shouldn’t make my ears bleed.
And as for the lack of activities for the kiddies - why? Why should there be activities for the kids? It’s a weekday market in the middle of the business district – there are no kids. In fact, some people prefer to shop this market because of that very fact. I just want to go, get my apples and come home. I don’t need to be part of a “community”, I don’t need entertainment. What’s next – clowns in the aisles of the supermarket making balloon animals? I grew up going to the market in Halifax with my parents and grandparents, and was expected to behave myself without a separate play area or special activities to accommodate me. There might be a treat when we got back to the car, but I was expected to be quiet and polite while the adults did their business.
Unfortunately, special activities are expected now, and farmers have no choice but to accommodate families, even at their own farm. In a piece that ran Sunday which, except for the Star’s ethical policy and style guide, should surely have been sub-titled “People are Assholes”, environment reporter Catherine Porter looks at the decline in business at pick-your-own farms and the various things farmers have added to attract customers. From corn mazes to pumpkin catapults and bouncy castles, “entertainment farm” farmers have had to become not just the stewards of the land, but showmen, giftshop managers, tour guides and publicity people.
On top of crop rotation and weed management, entertainment farmers need to excel at public relations. Bert Andrews’ cellphone rings constantly, with staff asking about store displays and school trips.
Young mothers use the table on his back deck to change diapers. Cars roll into the parking lot way after closing hour. Some visitors come with picnic baskets and plans for a sunset dinner on his property.
“People think it’s a park,” he says.
So let’s put this whole “support a local farmer” into perspective, shall we? Because “support” seems to have some strings attached. We seem to want to support the farmers willing to coddle us, willing to accept our bad behaviour and spoiled demands, and our business goes to those willing to bend over backwards and make the whole thing “fun”.
It is not the job of the farmer or the farmer’s market to entertain us, to baby-sit our kids or to give us that “back to the farm” experience. It is not their job to ensure that we feel a sense of community, or to ensure that we go home feeling all warm and rosy because, ooh, look, we supported a farmer today. Let’s stop being so demanding and so damned patronizing and let the farmers do their job – to grow the food we eat. Isn’t that enough of a responsibility?
August 15th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
“Heck, for that matter, the “buy local” trend seems to go no further than food. .”
I disagree. More and more, people are taking note of where their purchases originate from. Especially with all the press on our ‘carbon footprint’ and quality assurance problems in China, many people are starting to express a preference for local products. The undercurrent of this movement has existed for some time (supporting your nation’s economy), but now is growing for the reasons stated.
Regarding ‘entertainment farmers’, ambience is a necessary byproduct of any business. Many farmers may not be used to dealing directly with the public so this may be all new to them. The type of ambience, or marketing if we want to be more precise, to any target group is determined by the nature of the buisness. So doctor’s offices often have appropriate literature and strictly clinical facilities, generally speaking, whereas grocery stores feature a lot of bright signs, samples, recipe booklets, etc. Farmers selling food outside in such a rustic manner have their direct relationship with consumers to leverage. It seems natural that the direction their marketing or ambience would take is in the form of community oriented events; a personal touch.
After all, there is still competition and prices/location are not the definitive marker for all consumers (i.e. the new Whole Foods.) Why it is not natural to assume that one’s business will grow in accordance with what the business can offer the consumer? A smart farmer should leverage what they can toward their own fiscal wellbeing.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Re: “Ambiance is a necessary byproduct of any business”
Yes, rj, what better way to teach kids about the provenance of food, than by souping up their market experience with shiny lights and smiley clowns. You want to bring your f-ing kid to the market? Fantastic! Try showing them the market. If you want to show Johnny clowns, the Ex opens this Friday.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Sorry, AJ - I don’t think we’re ever going to see any kind of campaign to “support your local factory worker”. Yes, there is a push in certain circles to buy locally made goods of all types, but it’s never going to transfer over into the mainstream. Our society is just too enamoured with cheap stuff, and lots of it, and there are too many people with a vested interest in selling that cheap stuff for a big profit that the buy local trend will ever transfer to any group other than the well-off and elite. (I go to all of these green-oriented, buy local events - ain’t no poor people there, pal.)
“Regarding ‘entertainment farmers’, ambience is a necessary byproduct of any business.”
Yeah? You’ve found variety stores and gas stations that are entertaining and have a nice ambiance? Maybe we choose the businesses we frequent differently then. I don’t care how lovely the dentist’s office is or what magazines they carry as long as they do good work on my teeth. I don’t care how much money goes into marketing a store if they don’t have things I want to buy.
If someone else’s idea of “ambiance” ends up costing everyone more, then I’ll take sterile and unentertaining, please. I don’t go to the market to be forced to listen to some guy honk on a saxaphone, I don’t go because there’s a place for kids to hang out. I certainly don’t go because I’m buying into someone else’s idea of “community”. The joy of the market is the market itself - the array of stuff available, the delight at the first corn, peaches, apples… All the other crap detracts from that experience for me.
And while I certainly don’t blame the U-pick farmers for adding “entertainment” as a means of keeping kids occupied while their parents are picking berries or apples if it helps attract customers and keeps their farm afloat, I still think it’s a terrible shame that it’s necessary. We’ve become such a self-entitled society that we are unable to find pleasure in the simple joyful things like picking strawberries, and we feel that without a bouncy castle it just hasn’t been a complete afternoon. I did my time at the U-Pick farms as a kid, and the fun part of the visit was the actual picking - all the other stuff wasn’t necessary to make it a memorable trip.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Bravo Sheryl,
I agree, the reason I go to Nathan Philips is to buy fresh fruits and veggies that are better than anything I can buy in the local Dominion/Loblaws. The plus is that I can buy from a local farmer. I do not go for the entertainment or to learn how this farmer grows his/her stuff or what else they do. Re U-pick I took my kids when they were young and they did not expect anything more than picking berries with their Mom and getting to think up way to use those strawberries, blueberries when we got home…pancakes everyday!
August 16th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Having worked at my brother-in-law’s stall at the Belleville Farmer’s Market, I was prepared to hate this article. Instead, my quibbles are minor and not worth mentioning.
The atmosphere at Farmer’s Market is simply what people make of it and it varies by market. There are the granola-y types who will tell you, ad nauseum and ad infinitum, that they are singlehandedly saving the environment by shopping locally and using their own hemp bags instead of plastics. There are those who will tell you it is a pain in the ass to have to go to one stall to buy bread, another to buy veggies and yet another to by fruits (personally, I’ve always found this to be an odd criticism as the seperate booths are still much closer than the various sections in a typical grocery store), and then there are those who simply believe (as I do) that food picked ripe that morning or the night before, tastes better than food picked while unripe, then packed and shipped from out of province, out of country or out of continent days before.
We want our relationships with those who produce our sustinance to be personal because we rely on it for our survival. Most of us will never meet the person who sews our clothes, prints our books or build our homes. It is increasingly rare to meet the people responsible for helping us live our lives as well as we do. With globalization we lose the personal connection. Many people still crave that. I didn’t realize how much I did until I started working the occasional weekend shift at a Farmer’s Market.
As far as the entertainment: it’s window dressing. Nice but not necessary. If you really want to see a kid entertained, have them pick out their own pumpkin, marvel at the different shapes, colours and sizes of fall gourds, or smell fresh-picked herbs. The clown will pale in comparison.
Eat today? Thank a farmer.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I am sorry that my commentary on the current economic state was misconstrued as me voicing my own opinion on what I prefer in a shopping experience. I am actually very much a minimalist and prefer the basics — very much NOT a consumer :)
Yet I am cynical enough to be able to see which businesses generally prosper (you don’t see chains of korean convenience stores. .) and why. That is what I was offering as a counter argument to this post.