Demand For Locally Grown Food Increases

ABINGDON, Va. – With local produce prices lower than shipped produce almost across the board, demand for locally grown vegetables has gone up dramatically.

Buyers and sellers say rising gas prices and recent food safety scares may be the magic beans sending demand skyward.

“We don’t know what we’re getting when we buy it from other countries and all that,” said Harriet Boyd as she shopped at the Abingdon Farmers Market on Tuesday.

“There’s no comparison with the things they have here. They’re tastier. They’re just better.”

Pam Kestner, produce clerk at a nearby Food City store, said local produce is driving sales there as well.

“People would come in and they would wait, sit and wait for an hour to get the [local] strawberries,” Kestner said. “If you can get your local stuff in here, it helps the sales of your other things as well.”

The store sells local produce at about the same price as farmers market vendors, though vegetables from elsewhere are more expensive. But Kestner said it’s more than just price driving sales.

“With the tomato scare, everybody’s wanting the local tomatoes, and really since the tomato scare, everybody’s wanting everything local,” she said, adding she expects demand for local produce to continue to rise.

Farmers market vendors say their products, at the same cost, are fresher, having been picked hours – not days – before they are purchased.

“We picked it this morning, so it can’t get no fresher,” said Nancy Foster, who was selling vegetables at the market Tuesday with her brother Charles.

“I just came out of the field with these about three hours ago, said Mark McCracken, who was also selling vegetables at the market. “[A grocery store chain] got them about three weeks ago.”

Market Manager Darnell Sumrell said vendors are doing so well this year, the market may have to add a day and open Thursdays as well as Saturdays and Tuesdays.

“It supports your local economy for one thing, it does not have to be trucked in so we’re not using all the gasoline,” said farmers market customer Cynthia Hagy. “You know where it comes from, you keep a sense of community, which I think is very important ... and nutrition. It loses a lot of the nutrients in being trucked.”

Vendors also say the market enables them to sell vegetable varieties – like peanut beans, heirloom varieties of tomatoes or papaya squash – that just aren’t available in grocery stores.

Kestner, at Food City, says the store gets produce deliveries every other day, so it’s fresh, and the store carries a larger variety, particularly of items that can’t be grown locally.

“We definitely have a bigger variety,” Kestner said, “Stuff from other countries, like your tropical stuff.”

She said Food City started selling more local produce about three years ago and it’s been on the increase ever since.

Meanwhile, the farmers market has gone from a group of vendors in a parking lot on Saturday mornings to a pavilion that’s crammed full two days a week – and it’s still early in the season.

“I don’t think this is a trend,” said Debbie Trueblood, who was shopping at the market Tuesday. “I think this is the way it’s going to become.”

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