SEPTEMBER 2007: FEATURE, FARMERS' MARKETS
The Market Economy
There’s been an explosion of farmers’ markets
around the state, and with it a casualty list. Can there be too
much of a good thing?
By Robin Doussard
The Saturday Portland Farmers’ Market at Portland State
University long ago morphed from a nice vegetable stand to a
food theme park (special attraction: attack of the locavores).
During the peak months, the hordes hit early: 15,000 people
sweep through the free-range eggplant and local blackberries
like locusts in a cornfield. By mid-morning, it’s elbow
to elbow at the 140 vendor stalls and if you haven’t
already snagged your wild salmon, you’re probably out of
luck. But with the fiddlers fiddling and the handmade artisan
sausages grilling, who cares?
It’s a crowded, festive scene that plays out at
farmers’ markets from Hood River to Grants Pass to
Beaverton. Farmers markets in Oregon have grown from 10 in the
early 1990s to at last count 86. The Portland metro area alone
has 37. From June to September, about 120,000 Oregonians shop
weekly at a farmers’ market, business worth $25 million
in sales in 2006 to local farmers and purveyors. Nationally,
there are 3,700 farmers’ markets, 2,000 of which have
opened in the past decade.
Farmer’s markets have steadily grown in the past decade,
fueled by a surge of interest in local agriculture and food
production, often called “civic agriculture”
because of the link between local food and a community’s
social and economic development. But despite their popularity,
markets are not simple enterprises and success is not a sure
thing. They are a complicated mix of business, community and
nonprofit purposes in a unique retail environment and they are
highly susceptible to failure.
“Farmers’ markets are a weird combination of
business-world things and community service things,” says
Garry Stephenson, an Oregon State University small-farms
expert.
Masked by the continued net growth in numbers, markets are
more fragile than anyone knew. Stephenson and OSU colleagues
Larry Lev and Linda Brewer have been studying farmers’
markets for a decade. They found that from 1998-2005, 62 new
markets opened across the state, but 32 closed. The failed
markets were young markets: 15 closed in their first year, and
30 had closed by their fourth year.
Every success story has its downside, and Oregon’s
storied farmers’ markets are no exception.
THERE ARE NO REGULATIONS on what constitutes a farmers’
market in Oregon. Each market makes its own decision about what
to sell, who can sell, how far away the food can come from and
where to locate. In addition, Oregon’s markets are funded
mostly by farmers’ fees and most budgets are minimal. In
contrast, California requires that its more than 360
farmers’ markets be certified by the state and conform to
a long list of requirements.
“People come into markets from an idealist standpoint.
They aren’t as practical as they should be,” says
Dianne Stefani-Ruff, the outgoing executive director of the
Portland Farmers’ Market. “It is a business.”
The OSU research found that there were five common factors
shared by failed markets: they were predominately small (under
30 vendors); they suffered from a poor variety of farm
products, especially fruits and vegetables; there was not
enough administrative revenue; and the market managers were
generally inexperienced and either low-paid or volunteer, which
led to high manager turnover.
Eamon Molloy, president of the Oregon Farmers’ Markets
Association and manager of the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market,
says markets need to be treated like a business, not a
nonprofit, if they are going to survive the startup phase.
“The ones that are struggling are undercapitalized,
marketing and advertising isn’t strong, and they
don’t know who the customer is,” observes Molloy.
“Markets have a hard time moving from a community event
to a business.”
Stephenson points to the 15-year-old Portland Farmers’
Market as a prime example of a market run as a successful
business. “They put together a business model for
themselves that could attract talent and resources, and they
had a growth strategy,” he says. “The more they
attracted high-quality people to their board, the more business
practices were evident. Now it’s a destination market.
People make a day of it. The business community likes it, the
political community likes it, and the community in general
likes it.”
The New York-based nonprofit Project for Public Spaces says
that cities are beginning to understand the local and regional
economic benefits of farmers’ markets and their ability
to spark downtown revitalization. Lev, Brewer and Stephenson
found that markets in Oregon are strong magnets that draw
people to downtowns. In Corvallis and Albany, for example, the
markets were the overwhelming reason people were downtown
on weekends.
“In the 1980s and ’90s, markets were started by
farmers’,” says Lev. “Now, most markets are
started by communities, cities or business associations and
then they recruit farmers.”
The 15-year-old
Portland Farmers’ Market at Portland State
Univeristy is one of the biggest markets, with 140
vendors and 15,000 marketgoers on an average day
during peak summer months. Its business practices are
considered ahead of many markets.
Photos by Leah
Nash
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THERE HAVE BEEN OTHER PERIODS of growth and decline, say the
researchers, in the number of farmers’ markets that were
driven by major events such as war, the economy or social
upheaval. Markets grew during the Great Depression because of
the “self help” programs and during the 1970s
because of political activism, and during the 1990s through
today, driven in part by a desire to use markets as a way to
build community.
The researchers and some market managers don’t see this
cycle ending anytime soon.
Dave and Lori Hoyle, co-owners of Creative Growers in Noti,
just last year started selling at one farmers’ market,
and already they’ve expanded to four in the Portland
metro area.
Dave Hoyle sees the growth of farmers’ markets “as
a relatively infinite expansion.” Last year his 20-acre
organic farm expanded beyond its restaurant base and now he has
a list of markets that would like him to sell at their
venue.
“There’s an ever-increasing demand,” says
Molloy.
But some growers don’t see that as a good thing.
Kevin McGovney, market manager of the Interstate
Farmers’ Market in Portland, thinks the market is already
saturated. He worries that the primary mission — to
support the local farmer and bring fresh, local food to the
community — could get corrupted because he thinks people
are looking more for a festival event than a local-farm-driven
market. And the absence of standards has made the markets a
“free-for-all.”
Larry Thompson of Thompson Farms in Damascus has been in
farmers’ markets for 20 years and puts a finer point on
the downside of success. “There’s been a decrease
of farmers at the farmers’ markets,” he says. For
example, he says that many flower vendors are getting their
stock at the Portland Flower Market.
“The competition has gotten so intense,” says
Thompson, adding that he used to be in 11 markets and has
dropped back to six in the Portland metro area. Thompson, a
lifelong farmer, says that farmers’ markets are such an
important economic driver for small farms, he just
doesn’t want to see them lose out.
Stefani-Ruff has been with the Portland market for 10 years
and remains bullish on the market for markets. She notes that
four new ones opened in Portland just this year and the PSU
market will stay open until December this year.
Two of the new markets were supported by health organizations:
Kaiser Permanente helped revive the Lents neighborhood market
in Portland last year with a three-year grant, and Oregon
Health & Science University started a market. Stefani-Ruff
says this is an important trend in farmers’ markets, also
noting that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon gave her market a
$5,000 grant this year.
The Kaiser-supported farmers’ markets started in
Oakland, Calif., in 2003 promoted by a Kaiser doctor as a
“subtle form of preventative medicine.” Now there
are more than two dozen markets supported by Kaiser in six
states, including the Interstate farmers’ market in north
Portland, which Kaiser four years ago seeded with a grant.
North Portland had had two failed markets before Interstate
opened.
With large corporations hopping on the farmers’ market
bandwagon along with voracious consumers, this latest boom
cycle in farmers’ markets might have more staying power,
despite the inherent risks.
“We opened our market in April this year in the pouring
rain,” says Stefani-Ruff, “and it was
jammed!”
Have an opinion? E-mail feedback@oregonbusiness.com
