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There’s an ad on Craigslist right now soliciting a market manager for next year for a new farmers market in Creve Coeur.
When I first saw it, I had a crazy vision of all the mayors from the countless municipalities in the metro area sitting in the audience at an Oprah show. “Look under your seats,” she announces. “You get a farmers market…and you get a farmers market…and you get a farmers market….”
But would this be this a Good Thing?
In fairness, the park director of Creve Coeur, Kirsten Barnes, and the public information officer, Theresa Bradshaw, did their homework in researching farmers markets. They talked to some of the more successful farmers markets in the area. They were able to address numerous logistical concerns raised by the council. They appeared to mandate that the market would be a producers market, sometimes also known as a growers market, where the vendors are required to sell only things grown or produced on their own farms.
But I didn’t see anything in the city council minutes or in the story from the hyperlocal news site Patch, may it rest in peace, that they’d actually talked to many farmers.
For many years, I compiled the annual local farmers market guide for the Post-Dispatch. This year, in addition to pulling together information for close to 40 markets, I visited about half of them.
There aren’t enough farmers to go around.
Well, there are, if you think that half a dozen produce stalls is sufficient for a farmers market. (The Arnold Farmers Market is above.) At many of the markets, those stalls and a few egg or meat or preserved-food suppliers are supplemented by various tchotchke vendors who stretch the word “artisan” that’s part of some markets’ names. And at more than a few, I’ve seen chiropractors and other professional-service providers who are clearly there to make the place look bigger.
And I’ve had market masters tell me they can’t sign up enough farmers, and farmers tell me that they don’t have the resources to attend multiple markets.
I admit, my perspective is colored by having been spoiled by the Dane County Farmers Market in Wisconsin. I lived in Madison almost 30 years ago, and even then, that market had about 100 vendors every Saturday morning. Now it lays claim to the title of largest farmers market in America.
Even in the early days of the Clayton Farmers Market over a decade ago, there were usually 20 or so farmers at each market.
One argument for more markets is that customers don’t have to drive as far, but I think that merely reflects the inefficiency of the metro area’s structure of countless independent municipalities. I’d argue that Soulard Farmers Market, a destination for thousands every Saturday morning, is a much more economically viable model for a farmers market (although its low percentage of local farmers makes it more of a produce stand than a true local-grower-based market).
In a similar vein, Creve Coeur is planning to hold its market at Parkway Northeast Middle School, which, at Ladue and 270, is near…nothing. Planners chose it because it wouldn’t cause traffic issues, but that means it will also do precisely zippo in incenting its shoppers to patronize other local businesses.
That Craigslist listing had a parallel listing on Creve Coeur’s municipal website that has since disappeared. Perhaps the city is taking a step back and realizing the extent of time and resources that will be required. And perhaps the region as a whole might draw a lesson from agricultural economics: When the crop yield is too big, value can actually go down.
Commentary by Joe Bonwich
