[StPaul] Farmer's Market

[Mary Baker]

I'm of two minds (at least) on the issue of agribusiness and the Farmer's 
Market.  On the one hand, I'm perfectly happy to buy frozen or canned 
vegetables from large scale agribusinesses.  I've been told that these are 
actually usually "fresher" than buying "fresh" in the stores, because they 
go direct from being picked into storage, flash frozen or canned within 
hours.  "Fresh" in the stores gets picked, put on ice, shipped and then 
stored in the back room of the grocery, then sit out in the fresh food area 
until purchased, then sits in your fridge.  All that time doesn't count for 
frozen or canned foods.  I'm also one of those people who thinks intelligent 
use of pesticides/herbicides/etc. is a good thing.  Organic is nice, but I 
don't think it's always feasible.  I'm not always willing to pay the higher 
price that organic food requires.  I'd rather be poisoned a little and live 
longer in net because of greater nutritional choices than not be poisoned at 
all and die earlier of less nutrition.  (btw, I'm NOT wanting to get into a 
discussion of pros and cons of organic food)

All that aside, I think the reason why I prefer to buy at the Farmer's 
Market is because it so often puts a human face to the equation.  Maybe the 
same thing at work as when another poster here talked about "what has 
politics come to?" in the fact that modern political questionaire folks are 
hired hands.  It adds something to imagine the questionnaire actually cares 
about the work they are doing, has a personal stake in the process other 
than a paycheck.  It implies that politics can be bought and has nothing to 
do with ideology or interests or what's right.

I guess that's how I feel about the FM.  The reality of it is the vendors 
are selling there because it's profitable, just like politicians often vote 
where they are paid to vote (even if that "paid" is by votes of their 
constituency).  That's how it works.  People do what they are rewarded to 
do.  This is where I am of two minds - I want my political questionaire folk 
to be motivated and personally engaged by the issues, but I feel there's 
nothing wrong with paying people to do it.  I want my vegetable vendor to 
appreciate and need my business, but I also want them to be selling such 
great stuff that they could do without me!

As for irregularly sized produce - this isn't always a problem.  It also 
might be the result of the relatively small FM I go to.  For some vegetables 
I could care less.  For others, strawberries for example, the June-bearing 
local strawberries are stronger tasting and usually sweeter than supermarket 
"regularly sized" strawberries.  Others still, like the carrots, I found to 
be very inconvenient.  They're so much easier to cut, clean, pare or 
whatever when they are a uniform shape.

Mary Baker
East Side
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