Growers and Shoppers Crowd Farmers' Markets By TIMOTHY EGAN STOCKTON, Calif., Sept. 24 � To find chickens that still have a pulse, neon-pink eggplants and tomatoes that have been described as better than sex, the modern hunter-gatherer has to venture under the freeway in downtown Stockton, and get there early to fight off the crowds.
It would seem a burden to the average grocery buyer to get up at sunrise, bother with parking and jostle elbows for the privilege of biting into a peach picked that morning. But on some days, nearly 10,000 people do just that in a few hours here at the Stockton farmers' market. Advertisement At a time when eating has become a political statement, and the government is paying up to $19 billion a year to subsidize commodity crops in a glutted global market, one of the fastest-growing trends in the way Americans get their food is the simple farmers' market. With no subsidies and no middle men, farmers' markets have increased by 79 percent since 1994, to 3,137 markets in all 50 states, and the number of farmers who sell at them has more than tripled to 67,000, the Agriculture Department will report next week. About three million Americans a week now get their fresh food directly from the farmers who grew it. These numbers, of course, represent a very thin slice of the big pie of national food. Farmers' markets reported about $1 billion in sales last year, compared with more than $200 billion in overall farm revenue. Barely 3 percent of the nation's two million farmers sell some of what they grow directly to consumers. But in an era of big-box food stores, when 10 major grocery chains control the purchase of 50 percent of fresh food, the proliferation of open-air markets has come out of nowhere, giving more consumers an option and allowing many small farmers to stay in business. In fact, while some small farmers say the direct-sale markets provide them just enough money to get by, others have stopped selling to big food wholesalers or relying on subsidies because they can make a better living selling direct to people. By cutting out the middle man, direct-sale farmers can make 40 to 60 percent more than selling to wholesalers, they say. These farmers relish their independence from both government subsidies and the big grocery chains. "Those other farmers, the ones that get the big payments from the government, they're welfare farmers," said Karen Fedrau, who works at six markets a week, selling fruit and vegetables from the farm she runs with her husband in northern California. Pam Bosserd, who sells produce grown on 40 acres at her family farm near Battle Creek, Mich., six months out of the year, said she could gross about $200,000 in annual sales on food she grows, picks and sells herself. Many of her buyers are regular customers, who seem as fascinated by the farm itself as they are by Ms. Bosserd's best-selling sweet white corn. "Most people are so far removed from farming in this country that there's this fascination with the real thing," Ms. Bosserd said. "People want fresh food. They want a piece of fruit or an ear of corn that wasn't picked in Mexico and shipped for two thousand miles." Just up the highway from here, people line up on the hot pavement of otherwise half-empty mall parking lots to buy odd-shaped, dirt-clumped fresh produce at one of the nine regular farmers' markets in Sacramento. The 327 farmers' markets in California have become so popular that there is a waiting list to join them, the Agriculture Department says. New York, with 269 farmers' markets, is second only to California in growth. In Madison, Wis., hundreds of direct-sale vendors ring the capital outdoors. Seattle's venerable Pike Place Market, the oldest in the nation, has been duplicated in a half-dozen regular outdoor markets around the city over the last five years, and is being studied as a model for a market that may rise on the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. But for all the growth, direct selling may never get beyond its newfound niche in the cities. Federal officials say that nearly 40 percent of all farm income now comes directly from government subsidies, and the farm bill signed by President Bush this year will pay $190 billion over 10 years, which includes $83 billion in new spending. A small amount of money was supposed to go into a program promoting farmers' markets, but it was never appropriated. "Against the billions of dollars in direct subsidies paid for things that we already have too much of, the growth of these small farmers' markets is a perfect example of how government overlooks people that don't have a powerful lobby," said Ken Cook, director of the Environmental Working Group, which studies farm subsidies in Washington. "But maybe the best thing government can do is stay out of the way." Ms. Fedrau said she used to sell her fruit wholesale to a central market on the East Coast. It had to be picked early, when the fruit was hard, to hold up to the rigors of shipping. "We dealt with a broker who set a price, and many times that price was well below what it cost us to grow the fruit," Ms. Fedrau said. "When they send you a bill instead of a check at the end of the growing season, you know you're in trouble." She now sells all her food directly to people at markets, and makes a good enough living to raise five children and hold onto a 130-acre farm. Every day, she sells from a different market in Northern California. "Our business will continue to grow as long as people are dissatisfied with what they get at the supermarket," Ms. Fedrau said. Some experts would temper Ms. Fedrau's optimism. "Right now, green markets are growing faster than anything in agriculture," said Dr. Steven Blank, a farm economist at the University of California at Davis and the author of three books on the subject. "The question is whether consumers in significant numbers will support them. I wouldn't hold my breath." But last week, a tour of farmers' markets throughout the West Coast found long lines, big crowds and enthusiastic buyers at all the direct-sale stands. Many vendors said they were selling up to $1,000 worth of produce a day. Although the markets are seasonal, usually from April through October, that half year of sales is enough to tide people over. "Nobody grows a grape like us," said one farmer, Alberto Mora, who said the supermarket wholesalers would never buy his grapes because they are picked ripe, and the bunches are too big. Even with city dwellers' newfound fascination with small farmers at the urban edge, rural culture is fading. "I would love to have one of my children carry on the farm," said Ms. Bosserd, the third-generation farmer from Michigan. "But I don't think it's going to happen. My 12-year-old wants to move to the city and become a plastic surgeon."
