My idea of a farmers’ market: farmers selling fresh produce and value-added items in a market setting. Pretty simple, right?

According to Wikipedia (the source of all things true and open-sourced), farmers’ markets “consist of individual vendors, mostly farmers, who set up booths, tables or stands, outdoors or indoors, to sell produce, meat products, fruits and sometimes prepared foods and beverages.” A traditional way of selling agricultural and homemade products, they are “one of the oldest forms of direct marketing by small farmers” (thank you, Local Harvest). They’ve risen in popularity over the last decade, many of them have cropped up in urban areas and take food stamps (or SNAP or WIC or whatever the alphabet soup of the day is), and they get farm-fresh produce to consumers directly. The person buying the food can ask the person growing the food how it was grown and be comfortable enough to buy the food as a result, or politely walk away if they’re not satisfied with the answer.  Information is easily available to the consumer so that they can make an informed decision.

Which is taken away, at least in part, by large grocery stores. Gone are the days when the local greengrocer got regular shipments from local farms. Produce is shipped in from all over the country, and all over the world. There are no seasons in the produce section anymore. If you pay close attention, those grapes may be from South America one month, and California the next, but you can still get grapes year round. But at what cost? Is it worth a potential e. coli outbreak on your spinach to get it as cheaply as possible?

I’m perturbed today by the co-opting of the idea of a farmers’ market, whether intentional or not. At a farmers’ market, you expect to see things grown in season, ripe and lush and ready to eat. The building in which my office is located is advertising a ‘farmers’ market’ (it’s in quotes intentionally) for this week. Seeing as though the Earth Day ‘farmers’ market’ was produce shipped in from who knows where that looked just like what you can find at the big box grocery store, I asked questions this time around. It’s all from one place, a commercial produce facility the next state over, and the organizers didn’t seem to be fazed by the idea that the ‘farmer’ wouldn’t be on site to interact with potential customers. It’s not a farmers’ market at all – it’s a mobile grocery store produce section. Which is fine if you want a mealy, underwhelming apple in April. But at the peak of strawberry season, I want something picked fresh that morning and brought directly to the table so I can buy it and savor the ripe burst of flavor.

It bothers me that this distinction is lost on so many people. That organic is too expensive, that it doesn’t matter if pesticides or genetically modified crops banned in other countries are involved, that we’re putting these things into our children’s bodies without considering the consequences. Maybe if we all could talk to our farmers again, we’d know the difference.