Abstract
Farmers markets can offer solutions to several of the biggest problems besetting the US food system: fair prices to farmers; healthy, fresh food for consumers; direct contacts between consumers and farmers; food for food deserts; support for local economies. Awareness of these benefits led us to study the farmers markets of Greater Cincinnati. Markets grew rapidly in the early 1980s, peaked in 2012, and declined 17% by 2018. Sixty-one percent of the markets that started since 1970 have closed. Two types of markets exist: farmer-focused markets, with farmer vendors, and consumer-focused markets, with farmers and specialist vendors. Detailed information about market management shows that managers, the majority of whom are volunteers or underpaid, have insufficient resources to be sustainable. Market decline is often blamed on an oversupply of markets, but other factors are involved: the inability of market personnel and customers to cross class and racial boundaries; the encroachment of online retailers; a scarcity of farmers; market manager failures. Individual markets need to form coalitions and gain sufficient resources from governments or private funders to employ specialists who can assist managers, expand the consumer base, and design promotion campaigns that effectively promote farmers markets in the changing retail food landscape.
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In the late 1980s and 90s the globalization of the food system intensified as high quality exotic fruits and vegetables from the Global South began appearing in upscale supermarkets and specialized food markets (Friedland 1994).
Gantla and Lev (2015) have created a market classification system strikingly similar to ours. They classify markets by “ownership,” defined as who makes decisions, and identify three types of farmers markets: vendor led, which are very close to our farmer focused markets; community led, which are similar to our consumer-focused markets; and institutional sub-entities, markets run by larger organizations, into which some of our farmer-focused and some consumer focused markets fit.
The number of closed markets in a period are from the total number of markets, not solely from new markets that were opened during that period. For example, three of the 28 markets that closed in the 2005–2018 period were not begun during that period. Table 7 gives the number which opened and closed in the 2005–2018 period.
Eight failures due to lack of consumers: 4 Wellness markets; 3 no customer, unclear why; 1 of 3 which we dropped because they had fewer than 2 farmers, but the market continued.
Seventeen closures because of bad planning and management failures: 5 businesses; 3 markets which could not find replacement managers; 3 bad sites; 3 incompetent managers; 2 of 3 which we dropped because they had fewer than two farmers; 1 whose manager’s pay was terminated when the city cut funds.
Of particular relevance to farmers markets is the white ancestors of most of today’s farmers being given land virtually for free, while in the same period freed slaves got nothing but the false promise of “40 acres and a mule.”
One of these markets has two managers, one of whom might be considered to have adequate pay.
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Acknowledgements
We are indebted to and inspired by the many farmers market managers who shared their knowledge of the origins and operations of their markets; the farmers who explained the successes and challenges they face; and the commitment and talent of Green Umbrella’s Local Food Action Team members. We also thank Ms. Amy Prues for the revealing and handsome maps she made of the markets we studied. In addition, we want to recognize the activists who began the Tailgate market system in the 1970s and revitalized the region’s farmers markets: Jodi and Terry Grundy; Eileen Freshette; David Rosenburg, and Kathleen Cusick. Ed and Donna Kluba provided documents and discussions on development of the Tailgate markets through the years. Toby Deaton helped collect and did the first analyses of our data. Marian Dickinson and Julie Twiss collaborated with the senior author in planning and implementing the Green Umbrella farmers market manager survey, and Julie Twiss built the spreadsheet, inputted the survey data, and created the summary of survey results. Finally, the paper is greatly improved by the comments and suggestions of the three anonymous reviewers provided by the journal.
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Metz, J.J., Scherer, S.M. The rise and decline of farmers markets in greater Cincinnati. Agric Hum Values 39, 95–117 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-021-10228-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-021-10228-8