September 2020 - 14

FARM MARKET & AGRITOURISM
Farmers' markets prove to be essential, resilient
BRIAN MOYER
Penn State Extension
bfm3@psu.edu
Ninety percent of my work during
the COVID-19 crisis has been with
farmers' markets throughout the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The very day that Gov. Tom Wolf
announced the closure of schools and
businesses, Pennsylvania Secretary of
Agriculture Russell Redding posted a
photo of himself shopping at a farm
market and stating that " farmers'
markets and on-farm markets are
essential businesses. "
This was very important because it
allowed markets to stay open and to
help market managers put guidelines
in place to operate safely across the
commonwealth.
My Extension colleagues and
I assisted managers with these
guidelines through webinars, articles,
news items and a weekly Market
Manager Forum where managers can
share best practices.
Market managers had to completely
redesign their markets to be the
opposite of what they were originally
designed to be. Markets typically are
places where a community comes to not
only shop, but to gather, eat and engage.
Now, markets are set up in a way that
keeps people at a distance. Customers
are encouraged to preorder, shop
quickly and practice grab-and-go.
The term that I keep using to
describe what market managers had
to do is " herculean. " Market managers
are usually poorly compensated for
their work in the best of times. At
many markets, management is done
by volunteers. Here is what a couple
of managers shared with me:
" We need about four to five
volunteers. Some are from vendor
businesses. Some from the
community. We plan on having three
people directly guiding customers
through the market. "
" We require all vendors to have a
separate person to handle checkout. If
they're too small to do so, we provided
a volunteer to those folks. "
Disruptions in the conventional food
system meant that markets attracted
customers who have never been to our
markets. Very quickly vendors were
reporting higher gross sales.
As always at famers' markets, signage
plays an important role during COVID-19.
Photo: Brian Moyer
Markets and vendors had to create
online ordering systems very quickly
for customers to preorder and prepay.
Some markets instituted timed pickup
where customers were assigned a
15-minute window when they could
pick up their orders to limit the
number of people that were at the
market at any given time.
Online ordering continues even as
markets opened for the regular season
and allowing customers to shop or
preorder. We expect this to continue
as it builds a level of convenience for
customers, particularly those who
have never shopped at the markets
before COVID-19.
Most markets lack the capacity to
collect sales data, but those that do
have shared that their year-over-year
gross sales to date for the market are
higher. Even as we have encouraged
customers to only send one household
member to market to shop, they are
spending more.
Because of the values-oriented
approach of farmers' markets -
prioritizing their vendor's financial
sustainability, community health and
well-being, and overall economic
development - we see that farmers'
markets have fielded some of the most
dynamic, creative responses to the
COVID-19 crisis; and all this despite
a lack of financial resources.
Markets have shown themselves to
be both essential and resilient parts of
our local food systems.
Jay Eury, Penn State Extension
educator, contributed to this article. VGN
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September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2020
