Discover Your Farmers Market

Most cities, big and small, across the US have some sort of a local farmers market where you can peruse local grown produce and meats and take home food that is typically cheaper and always fresher than you can get in your local supermarket. This isn't news. If you have a local market, I hope you can do shopping there on a regular basis - it's good for the community, good for you.No, what I want to talk about is the advantages to the farmers for farmers markets. Years back my wife and I were of the belief that we were doing farmers a greater favor to go to the farms themselves, pick our veggies and fruits - or buy them pre-picked. Somehow, this felt better, more natural, and we just assumed the farmer agreed. Well, fast-forward to today and I've had time to talk to farmers and reflect on this practice a bit more. What I have concluded is that the good feelings I had by going to the farm, instead of the market, is that the feeling was just for me. I don't know if I liked telling people I bought my veggies from the farm or what, but something inside told me I was better off doing what I was doing.
Turns out, calling a farmer and meeting him/her at their place, spending 10 minutes "shopping" and giving them $20 isn't all that efficient. Instead, if they pick their produce early in the morning and drive to the market, they can sell exponentially more produce to a lot more people, resulting in pretty much the same result for me and my wife at home.

If you're like us, going to farms and spending time with a farmer for a relatively low transaction, maybe you should give the local market another shot. It's better for the farmer, hopefully more convenient for you, and you can still have some of the freshest veggies available. Just a thought.

Finding a Market Near You

If you live in California, this site has a great database of farmers markets you can search for by city: www.cafarmersmarkets.com

If you're outside of California, there's probably similar sites for your state.