Farmers Market: Victim Of Success?

ABINGDON, Va. – Sometimes, success breeds trouble.

That can be said of the Abingdon Farmers Market, which has grown by leaps and bounds to become one of the region’s most popular venues during its first full season in a new downtown pavilion.
In light of that growth, vendors and administrators are now concerned there won’t be enough space for everyone next year and they expect some who want to sell their wares will have to be turned away.
That potential lack of space has some of the farmers and craft vendors at odds. Some say room can be made for all who wish to be there, while others say it’s time to set priorities.

“We realize that probably this coming season, or heck almost surely, we’re going to have to turn some folks away,” said Anthony Flaccavento, a vendor and executive director of Appalachian Sustainable Development, which is involved in running the market. “We’re going to have to do that in a way that’s as fair as possible.”

The Numbers
Flaccavento says the market has grown faster than anyone expected. An assessment done this year during the peak harvest and tourist season counted 48 vendors crammed into the open-air facility, which was visited by about 1,617 shoppers.

According to the assessment, 42 percent of the shoppers came from Abingdon, 29 percent from other parts of Washington County, 19 percent from elsewhere in the area and 10 percent from outside the area.

The town of Abingdon has a population of just under 8,000 people, according to census data. So, statistically speaking, as many as one in five households in town was represented at the market on the Saturday that kicked off this year’s Virginia Highlands Festival.

The majority of shoppers listed produce as their primary reason for attending, according to the assessment.

Prepared by a hired consultant, it estimated $16,350 in Saturday morning sales.

“It looks as though the market facility has already maxed out on vendor spaces,” according to the report. “The current design does not appear to allow for adding new spaces.”

Garrett Jackson, director of planning for the town, said he is confident the market – which comprises 7,175 square feet and was built last year for $444,570 – was “an excellent use of town money.”
“It’s become sort of a gathering place on Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings,” Jackson said. “I think any one of the customers that you talk to, they would certainly say it’s been a success.”

Flaccavento said the reason for that success – expanding beyond capacity in its first year – is a combination of growing concerns about the safety of food from other places and a realization of what good products local folks have to offer.

“It’s part of the Wal-Mart backlash,” Flaccavento said.

Many say a major draw of this market, which has quickly outpaced others in the region, is its diversity. “The whole [reason for] the Farmers Market thriving the way it has, is the fact that there is an eclectic group of farmers and producers and crafters and people doing baked goods and prepared foods and all of those different things,” said Kevin Worley, deputy director of parks and recreation for the town.

“If it was just one group, then it would not be thriving the way it has, and that’s been a steady comment from the patrons who have come down there,” Worley said. “They love that, because a lot of the other area farmers markets don’t have that.”

The Conflict
At least in concept, the idea of mutual benefit from different types of vendors was echoed by some of the vendors selling at the market last Tuesday afternoon. But even while acknowledging the craft vendors contribution, some said farmers should be the priority when space becomes scarce.

“We’ve got too many crafters, I think, for a farmers market,” said Brenda Thompson, who sells soup made from farm-raised vegetables. “[But] I see nothing wrong with the crafters, as long as the farmers have their space.”

Lionel Osborne, Thompson’s brother, who sells produce at the market, agreed that farmers “should be the priority.”

Farmers should have priority for the spaces under roof and crafters should be out on the lawn unless there’s extra space inside that no farmer claims, Osborne said. On the other side, some of the crafters say they’re feeling the pinch and worried they’ll be pushed out of a market where they’ve sold more products than at any other place.

“The farmers don’t like the crafters,” said Ed Warhurst, whose wife, Betsey, has sold well over 100 framed paintings at the market this season.

“What they said in the [recent vendors] meeting was they were probably going to have the crafters come early and late, not be there in the middle of the season when the farmers are there … which is when all the crafters make their money from the tourists,” Warhurst said.

All vendors should be treated equally, regardless of their product, because anyone excluded from the peak season may have to quit selling there altogether, Warhurst said. “I think they should give anyone that’s been here priority to come back,” he said. “And if 40 farmers show up, we’ll make room.”

Some vendors, meanwhile, say they’re trying to stay out of the conflict. “I think I know this much: they’re trying to figure out what’s the purpose of the market,” said Dwayne McIntyre of Roffey Cattle Company, which sells meat at the market. “It seems like a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what the market should be.”

The disagreement was discussed at length during a recent vendors meeting, McIntyre said, but no agreement was reached. “The people of Abingdon, their voice is … what overrides everything that’s going to happen here,” McIntyre said. “If there could be feedback on what the market should be, all this would dissipate.”

Some vendors say they’ve already made efforts to share the market’s scarce space – and a little bit of flexibility and cooperation could be enough to solve the problem, at least for the 2009 season.
“I shared my spot with other people almost every Saturday,” said Henry Smart, who sells produce and shares his spot with crafters. “I sort of thought we blended in together pretty good.”
He said such arrangements were not uncommon.

“I didn’t get a spot this year,” said Joe Blevins, of Silver Threads Country Catering, which sells baked goods. “But I’ve got one of those white pop-up tents, and I set up here on the grass.”

Blevins suggested that vendors sign up for spots at the beginning of the season and for the days they actually plan to sell their wares. That way, vendors with a season-specific product – like strawberries or pumpkins – can plan to occupy the same space at different times.

Richard Jones, a produce vendor and owner of River Bluff Farm, said opening the market on a third day could help catch some of the overflow. With the state of the economy, he says no one trying to sell their homegrown goods should be turned away.

“This was built by tobacco money and by the town of Abingdon, so it needs to be taken advantage of to help people whatever way it can,” Jones said.

“If it takes opening the market up to support the people, they need to open up the market. … It’s about everybody putting money in their pocket … it’s everybody keeping the cash flowing,” Jones said.
He predicted the number of vendors will increase next season if more people lose jobs and seek other sources of income. He said diversity also is important for continued success.

“It’s called the farmers market, but define farm products. If somebody knits a wool sweater, it came off a sheep,” Jones said. “You’ve got to have diversity because if you’ve got 100 different farmers in here selling tomatoes, what have you got?”

Any decisions should be made by someone who is not a vendor and doesn’t have a stake, he said.

Looking for Solutions
The solution now in the works is a formal steering committee that will address some of the conflicts. Its members will be elected by the vendors on Oct. 21.

The committee will include the following vendors: three produce, two meat and egg, two crafts, one flower or plant, and one baked or prepared food. Others on the committee will be one shopper, one town member and one member from Appalachian Sustainable Development.

Among the issues they will take up: defining the role of a market manager, the mix and scheduling of food and non-food vendors and parking issues. “The groundwork is laid so everything now should continue to go forward,” said Worley, the town parks and recreation official. “They’ll have everything worked out, and then the farmers market manager will be in place … and when the opening of the market begins, everybody will be ready to go.”

Not all of the vendors are convinced, but folks who have experience dealing with farmers markets say growing pains are not uncommon and conflicts usually work themselves out.

The key is to have fair representation for vendors and a market manager who doesn’t play favorites, according to Stacy Miller, executive secretary of the Farmers Market Coalition, an Iowa-based nonprofit advocacy group for farmers.

“The mission is very, very important,” Miller said. “We all understand that farmers markets have benefits to a lot of different kinds of people. But in order to understand what your primary goal is going into it, that will dictate kind of when you have to make hard decisions where you’re going to draw the line.” She said one solution to limited space is to set a percentage to limit the number of non-farmers who can sell on a given day and allocate those slots – on a rotating basis if necessary – to craft vendors.

That’s a solution used – in theory – by the State Street Farmers Market in Bristol, Tenn. Darlene Cole, who runs the market facility for the Twin City, says the rule is in place but the market has not reached capacity. It opened in 1999.

“We’ve never had an issue,” Cole said. “If it ever came to that, then the farmer has priority because that’s what it’s all about. But then again, you want to be loyal to those crafters who have been here from the beginning.”

Miller said a solution that works well in Los Angeles is a network of farmers markets. The flagship market in that city is in the posh area of town between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard. Vendors readily set up at markets in lower income areas in hopes of eventually getting into the more lucrative market, Miller said. The result is that all the area’s farmers markets come to thrive in ways that they wouldn’t without the enticement of the Hollywood market.

“It’s a good problem to have,” Miller said of Abingdon’s crowded market. “There are a lot of options, and I think the number of options is really only limited by the creativity and the flexibility of the people involved.”

Flaccavento said the Abingdon Farmers Market, while needing to work with the existing space in the near term, also has the potential for long-term solutions. “I think in the long run a second site may be part of it,” he said. “It’s also possible that people could set up a second market just on their own private property.”

He said he knew when the site was chosen and the plans drawn up, the market – which has no room for expansion – would one day become too crowded. But he didn’t expect it to happen in the first year. “It’s a nice dilemma to have in a way, but it’s not an easy one to manage,” he said. “No matter what we do, I’m sure there will be people who will not be happy about it.”

He said the good news is the amazing growth here indicates the possibility for the growth of more farmers markets around the region. “To the degree that the Marion market grows and the Glade [Spring] market grows and maybe a market in Duffield emerges, et cetera, that could be a good possibility for some of these vendors as well,” Flaccavento said.

Markets started in other area towns like Jonesborough, Tenn., and Big Stone Gap, Va., this year are already flourishing. “Some of these other emerging markets, as they get better and better, they’ll attract their own vendor base, and that will take some of the pressure off of Abingdon,” he said, adding that ASD and Bristol have been awarded a $68,000 grant to help develop these emerging farmers markets.

Miller, with the Farmers Market Coalition, said this kind of “organic evolution” happens naturally in response to demand for local farm products. “If the demand is there and the capacity is there, things will kind of take care of themselves,” she said.

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701