What You May Not Know About The Farmer’s Market

Farmers Market season is fast approaching! We absolutely love market season. If I am being honest here it isn’t because we bring in a ton of income.. full transparency if we really wanted to get down to the facts with what it takes to grow the produce, harvest it, and then package it we are probably less than $5/hr. This also doesn’t include the travel time to sell at the market or the time we spend at the market. So in other words we don’t do it because we are getting rich off of it.. we do it because it provides us purpose and joy.

Please keep that in mind when you are scrolling on your socials and see there is a post about a local farmers market. Engage in that post, give it a like, a share and tag a friend. Ultimately what you are endorsing is supporting your small farmers, bakers, and crafters who found their purpose. These folks likely gave up their nights and weekends to provide a product they believe in at your local market.

What you also may not realize are the groups of people who take time to organize the market spending countless hours creating social posts, recruiting new vendors, brainstorming activities to draw a crowd so they can build something positive for their community while trying to promote foot traffic within the local area. There are times where these market committees are not vendors which means they are community members who are dedicating unpaid time to create something positive for families to enjoy because they see the value in having these types of community building events.

I never really thought about any of this until we became vendors. I then started to see the passion that runs through these markets to make them a success. I have also seen the disappointment in everyone when the anticipated turnout just didn’t happen. What I have learned is the market is only as strong as its community support.

At the smaller markets we attend I will say we don’t see a lot of young adults. I often wonder if it’s just timing or if there is a way to get young adults to stop out. I also wonder if people pass their local market to go to a bigger market? Maybe not realizing that with their support they could turn their small town market into a popular place and keep their community dollars local. People will take time to drive if they feel the value is worth the effort. That was an ah-ha moment for me… what can Mad Acre Farms do to help support our local markets right!? What can we do to promote farm foot traffic? At that moment I realized we need to up our game and selling produce may not bring in the crowd but how we sell produce and the experience you get when you come to our table or farm could change that.

Let me leave you with this.. a typical work week market day for us looks like this.

The day prior before our corporate careers begin in the morning we walk the garden and determine what we are going to take. The next day we wake up early to get a jump on harvest. We have multiple markets and if it falls on a work day we are working twice as hard to get harvest done before our corporate careers start. During the end of the work day we are multitasking loading the vehicle with our freshly picked produce. I of course find myself after hours while loading our truck taking work calls. Once the truck is loaded we take care of the farm.. fresh water and feeding time. By this time we are at go time. We hustle to the market 5 minutes before the whistle blows and a very loyal vendor who we now call family without hesitation rushes to help us get setup. Sometimes we beat that whistle and sometimes we don’t… Talk about anxiety for me when we don’t…

The moments we don’t make the whistle are the times where I wonder if we are just crazy for even trying.. Then it happens, like clockwork, we have amazing supportive people waiting patiently for us from the community. If only they knew our hearts are racing out of our chests and we just finished up a stressful day at work but that all goes away when we get our first customer purchasing that freshly picked produce from our table! It’s just a friendly reminder to us of the why and a gentle nudge that gives us a sense of purpose♥️

Want to make an impact on your community? Check out your local farmers market.. even if you think it may not be for you. Trust me you will never know if you don’t go! If you are a farmers market supporter already, thank you it means the world to us!

Moral of the story… This is an easy one.. support local ♥️

✌🏼-Jamie