The RFM management counted the number of visitors to the market on Wednesday and found that the numbers are double from the previous year. 4,455 people visited the RFM this past Wednesday. That is fantastic news.
I would be interested to know if these visitors were new to the market or if they are regular customers. I would also be interested in knowing what they were looking for when they decided to come out to the farmer’s market. Did they know that what they would find or did they just want to go down to see what was there?
At this time of year there are really no fresh vegetables, other than those grown in greenhouses. It is too early and too cold. We start going into the market in early July, but some other veg growers start in late May to mid June depending on the weather. We have considered bringing early vegetables to the RFM, but have decided that it is not profitable for us to drive in with just a few things, so we wait until we have a full selection of produce. The other reason we don’t go in early is that we are too busy with seeding. Obviously it takes much more work to plant 130 acres than it does to plant the 5 acres that the many small growers at RFM have.
With the renewed interest in local food there are more people looking for places to purchase locally grown produce. There are also people looking for ways to cash in on this interest and I wonder how long it will be before some enterprising person inserts their business into the marketplace as “the” location to get local food. “The” place to get it is directly from the farmer, grower or producer. Either at a Farmer’s Market, a CSA, a farmer run co-op or at the Farm-Gate.
I know their is a lot of debate about ‘food miles’ and some people are against farm-gate sales due to a belief that driving to the farm will increase emissions. This may be very true in large cities where one would have to drive 100 or more kms to their nearest farm. The argument does not hold up in Saskatchewan.
If you live in Regina the nearest farms are 20 mins outside of the city. It takes less time and fewer fuel emissions to drive on the highway to a farm than it does to sit idling in traffic trying to get from one end of the city to the other.
In Saskatoon, some of the farms can be reached within 5 minutes from the city’s edge on Valley Road.
But, if one really does not want to visit the farm, then the Farmer’s Market is the way to go. It takes some planning. But this is part of our lifestyle that we are going to have to change. Some people argue that it is too difficult to get to a market, that it is not convenient, that all those farmers driving in with big trucks are releasing toxins…on and on…we are are culture of wanting everything easy and now!
Unless you are going to grow all of your food in your own backyard you are not going to get away from fuel emissions. Tractors run on fuel, irrigation equipment runs on electricity or fuel, storage requires electricity. Bringing my produce into the city 2 times a week uses less fuel than most urban people use in a week to get to work or drive around shopping. Also, the overhead costs of the farmer’s market do not include any storage, refrigeration, lighting, heating etc that operating a grocery store would. The majority of the growers are picking their product the day before market and delivering it directly to the market. There is no middle man, no long-term storage and relatively few fuel costs compared to purchasing food from Mexico!
At the Farmer’s Market the consumer actually gets to meet the grower. You have an opportunity to ask when the produce was picked, what variety of carrots are grown, what produce is coming into season next and get some cooking tips for products you are unfamiliar with. You can’t get that relationship from a distribution centre.
So yay for RFM!! I am so happy the visitor count is going up. It makes me think that all of the work we are doing is actually appreciated by the community!!
cheers
