Column Spend your money at farmers market and the money stays in the community. Spend it at the big box grocery store and it goes elsewhere.

After a lot of road trips in many different places, I have come to a conclusion. When you drive through the countryside and come across a small town, one of two things happens:

1. You think to yourself, “ugh, this place is full of box stores and has no feeling at all. Get me out of here!” You proceed to drive to the next destination on your map.

2. You think to yourself, “ah, look at all these independent stores and quaint streets, I want to live here!” You stay and hang out, grab a coffee, and maybe even stay for lunch.

I had this feeling recently as I passed through Willunga, Australia. Willunga is a small town south of Adelaide, equidistant from the ocean and vineyards; the kind of landscape that feels like paradise. The main street of town is a collection of small, independent stores. There’s the organic grocer, the butcher and the handful of cafes and wine shops which remind you that you’re in a hub of agriculture and viticulture. It was nearing lunch time and people were out; the small town felt vibrant and active.

Immediately I had the “I want to move here” feeling.

I mentioned this to a woman working in one of the cellar doors (that’s Australian for “tasting room”).

“There’s so much going on here, so many places selling local produce and food.”

“That’s because the city decided to invest in the farmers market,” she responded.

It’s true. Nowadays Willunga is known for its weekend organic farmers market. People drive in from around the area. According to the woman working at the cellar door, it was thanks to this that the town had exploded.

I started thinking about this and community building.

What is it that makes us have that feeling of “I want to live here”? It’s not just a street full of stores. It’s a sense of community; a feeling that there’s a thread that ties everyone together. So often, that thread is food. Food is essential; it’s what keeps us alive. It nourishes us both in the physical and the emotional sense, and it’s what brings us together.

It brings us around the table in the home, and it’s what brings us around the proverbial community table, so often a market.

Think about your local grocery store for a second. Are you compelled to stay a little longer and chat with a neighbor? Do you feel the same sense of pride when you pick up a jar of honey that comes from across the world as the one that comes from 10 miles down the road?

Community doesn’t just come together on its own. It takes work. As we think about how we continue to evolve our communities, and build new ones, some people have started using the phrase “placemaking.”

According to the Project for Public Spaces, “Placemaking is how we collectively shape our public realm to maximize shared value. Rooted in community-based participation, Placemaking involves the planning, design, management and programming of public spaces.”

As our world population grows, we have to think serious about our management of public spaces, and for me, that means thinking about food. Because investing in food and farmers markets has a positive economic impact.

When it comes to farmers markets specifically, there are the direct and indirect benefits. Certainly a farmer benefits when he or she can sell their produce without a middleman, but there are also economic benefits for the community that come from keeping things local.

In 2009, a study found that farmers markets in Oklahoma had generated a total of $3.3 million in direct sales, but $6 million in total economic impact. That’s almost double.

A study done by the USDA found that fruit and vegetable farms engaged in local food sales (i.e. local and regional markets) employ 13 full-time workers per $1 million of sales. Those fruit and vegetable farms that not engaged in local sales (think: big farming)? They only account for 3 full time employees per $1 million of sales. A local food economy creates more jobs.

According to a UK report, “spending in smaller independent local food outlets supports three times the number of jobs than at national grocery chains.” And in another study done in Salt Lake City, locally run businesses return 52 percent of their revenue to the local economy, whereas for national chain retailers, or box stores, it’s only 14 percent. Above and beyond that, when it comes to restaurants, local operation put 79 percent of their revenue back into the local economy, but for big national chains it’s only 30 percent.

This can face a huge impact, particularly when we’re looking at growth of farmers markets. Portland Farmers Market recently accounted that it would stay open all year round. And around the US, int he last decade, farmers markets have grown exponentially. Imagine if they kept growing, if they kept supporting local agriculture and they kept ensuring that local communities could eat well. Shopping locally doesn’t just put hands in the pocket of the farmer; it’s a direct investment in community health and when it comes to placemaking, supporting more farmers markets is a smart move.

We live in a world of “bigger is better.” We strive for efficiency and high production at low cost. But let’s not kid ourselves: we don’t need bigger with more choice. We need smaller with more quality. We don’t need to consume more; we need to consume better.

We need farmers and we need farmers markets. Because above all, we need community. And if you want to build community, you have to invest in it.

Related on EcoSalon

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Local Food, Local Community: Foodie Underground

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

The post Farmers Markets, Food, Placemaking and Smarter, Stronger Communities: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFor the love of local food.

There was a time when local food wasn’t fancy or special food, it was just food. People didn’t intentionally seek out food that came from nearby, it was simply all that they had.

But then came a globalized world with an abundance of choice, and dinners were no longer restricted to what came from the farm down the road. Our diets diversified and we had many more ingredients to experiment with. While this certainly made dinner more fun, it pushed the small, local farmer out and brought the large, industrial producer from across the country, or even the world, in. Because of our quest to expand what we had available to eat, we lost something in the process. We lost our relationship to local food, and instead of local food being a given, it became something that we had to intentionally seek out. We had to work harder to get something that was grown from down the road.

If you find it odd that apples from New Zealand can be cheaper than apples grown a few miles away, you are not alone.

I was thinking about this recently as I perused the wonderful space at Ploughboy, a market devoted to local foods in the small town of Salida, Colorado. Here, everything comes from nearby. Even the homemade granola and kombucha.

The entrance is inviting, signs boasting hand cut pasta and local grass-fed beef. Inside you’ll find locally made goat cheese and freshly baked spelt bread. If you wanted to transition to 100 percent locavore, this would be the place to start.

As I stood facing the market, behind me sat a Safeway, the parking lot a huge expanse of asphalt filled with four-wheeled monstrosities. In front of Ploughboy was a bike rack. If utopia could be found in a grocery store, this was certainly it. A place for the community to come and congregate, grab a deli item for lunch, and stock up on eggs from the nearby farm.

“I’m getting a restock of eggs from our three different farms tomorrow morning,” I overheard one of the Ploughboy staff tell a customer, listing off the names of the farms that the eggs would be coming from. I smiled.

There are certainly some foods that we have grown accustomed to that won’t be brought to us from local fields, but in a world where we’re trying to find ways to live more sustainably and more consciously, wouldn’t it be nice if our local food markets were just our regular food markets?

“But what about the people that can’t afford to eat like this?” you’ll say. You can blame that on agribusiness and an industry of food companies that have made food products cheaper than actual food, poisoning us in the process.

It’s not the slightly more expensive head of broccoli you should balk at. It’s the packaged potato chips made with partially hydrogenated oil. Sure the price tag may be less expensive in the food aisle, but that price tag isn’t taking into consideration more than $190 billion the U.S. spends on obesity-related healthcare costs every year.

For those of us who have the luxury to choose local, we have an obligation to, because it’s consumer demand and consumer demand alone that will change the system. Food products are created because there’s a market for them. Take that market away, and there’s nowhere for those food companies to sell to. Choose to eat better, not just because it’s better for you, but because it’s better for your community.

Do you dream of a world where the local food market is just the regular market? Then do everything in your power to get your food from close by. And maybe one day, more stores will feel a little more like Ploughboy.

Related on EcoSalon

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

The post What if All Markets Were Local Food Markets? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnA bag full of tomatoes, bread, and fresh cheese.

It was Saturday, the sun was shining and the central square of Carcassonne, France was packed with people. It was market day.

When in new places, I am always drawn to markets. In some cities they’re easy to find – the main event of the weekend – and in others they take a little more research. But at a market, you get the sounds, smells and sights of a place. You step into an everyday routine of wherever you are.

At a market, you wander. This is not expedient grocery list shopping; this is living in the moment. Taking up a bunch of tomatoes to see what they feel like. Smelling a container of strawberries. Holding a basket of chard. Asking the cheese monger what he recommends today. This is simple enjoyment. It’s no surprise that in our modern lives – most often defined by stress and deadlines – that we appreciate a moment to slow down.

I made my first round of the market. Because you always make a first round. Rule number one of market shopping: get a feel for the market and know what’s available.

Tightly packed into the main square, it was hard to determine where outdoor terraces ended and food stands started. The line to the organic baker wove around a few tables with coffee drinkers. The baker was doling out samples. “Un brownie sans gluten!” he exclaimed, cutting off a bit of the gluten free baked good. In bake-centric France gluten-free is rare to find, but sometimes you stumble across a nice surprise. We grabbed one for the following day’s river picnic. His fingers did a kind of dance routine, flitting back and forth between stuffing dense loaves in paper bags and doling out change. The kind of man that loves his job.

Next to him an old man sat behind a sea of wooden crates filled with salad. That’s another reason that we love markets: the personalities. These are not robotic cashiers, these are characters. These are farmers whose hands are cracked from working in the soil. These are bakers that have mastered a loaf of seed bread. Craving interaction, at a market we get just that. At a grocery store, you may just hand over money and leave with a “good bye” but at a market, there’s always something extra. Maybe it’s a discussion about the weather. Maybe it’s a joke about the food. Maybe it’s simply a comment that this is the best thing you have ever tasted. Whatever it is, it’s a human to human exchange, something for which we desperately yearn.

I made the rounds again. Handmade olive salami. From a local and organic producer. Only 4€.

It’s silly to even think about what you pay when you’re at the market; ultimately the market isn’t necessarily about the food, it’s about the experience.

Basil and tomatoes at the next stall. The cloth bag I was carrying was now full of picnic goods. Nothing processed, nothing imported, just good ingredients that would go well together.

Why do we love markets? Because they’re simple. Because they remind us of our relationship with food; that from what we eat, we draw happiness. And if we don’t take time to celebrate that happiness – that simple moment of picking up an apple to see how it feels and smells – then we are lacking something primal. We love markets because they bring us back to that connection, the connection that sustains us, physically and emotionally.

Food is joy, and a market is simply a wonderful manifestation of that.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Images: Anna Brones

The post Foodie Underground: Why do We Love Markets? appeared first on EcoSalon.