I saw this interesting chart at Vox.
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| Note this is growth rate, which indicates the increase has hit a plateau. For the absolute numbers chart go here. |
Maybe I am wrong, but it seems a little soon for this to be happening if the local sourcing food movement is actually going to become a dominant trend. This looks more like a fad that has finally reached most of its easily served foodies. And I say this as someone who rather likes farmers' markets.
I don't know about Carolina but around here they had no place to grow into. Every place that could have one pretty much already has one with no reason to add another.
ReplyDeleteOnce I see em start to close then I will hitch a ride onto the fad bandwagon.
If you sell around here, you have to deal with all kinds of taxes and fees along with people selling shipped in stuff just like chinamart sells. I try to sell wholesale to vegetable stands but they won't pay enough to fool with so I put most of my garden into grain production to feed my own animals. People can buy chinese vegetables for all I care. The one in Roanoke had most of the parking spaces taken away and much of the vendor space to build a plaza where a few people could stand around.
ReplyDeleteLocal groceries around here (Central NJ) have all added "locally grown" to their goods. Plus, if you go a bit out of town you'll fine "farm stands" same stuff, just didn't "go to market". So the "farmers markets" are where they are going to be already, not much room for growth.
ReplyDeletePioneer: In rural or suburban edge areas that has often been true. But not so true of urban areas. Also, I think you see a little more variety in some of the produce, but that may be my imagination.
ReplyDeleteSunnybrook: I like Roanoke VA. But looking on their web page, it says the city market is year round, which makes you wonder what they are trying to do. Presumably you could use green houses, but ... Does that work? Sad when it is worth more to feed to animals, than sell to people.
New Jersey is called the Garden State, and it isn't a joke, there is a lot of farming. But way back I don't remember all the farmers markets so I am guessing that it just reached early market penetration, and any new ones are just cannibalizing existing ones.