In search of more vendors for farmers' markets

Friday, April 3, 2009

A "personalized banner" on your booth canopy which is subsidized to 40 per cent off the regular price. Your profile online on a website. Two weeks' stall fees paid in advance. "Colourful and attractive vendor sign and cards." What's not to like about a scheme to bring new farmers into markets? Well, maybe the visit by "qualified inspectors" to make sure you are growing the products you sell.

It's all part of a scheme by Farmers' Markets Ontario to recruit vendors across the province, according to a flyer the organization published and distributed in February. Executive director Bob Chorney says that the number of "real" farmers at markets is going down at the same time as the number of farmers' markets rises. There were 11 new farmers' markets created in Ontario last year "and that adds to the shortage," he says.

In 2007, Farmers' Markets Ontario set up a couple of "model" markets where all the farmers are verified to be authentic, not resellers. Chorney says that there were 85 farmers verified in Ontario last year and that the MyMarket program will be extended across the province this year.

Some markets are a mixture of what Chorney refers to as "authentic farmers" and "resellers," who buy produce to sell rather than grow it. "The shopper is the one to make the decision," Chorney says.

The money to subsidize the new farmers comes from a provincial government program, some of it via Friends Of The Greenbelt. BF