Farmers Markets - Updated

Found a one-farmer (DeVries) Farmers Market (FM) in Craig today and bought some plums and apricots. As my posts show, one of my favorite activities is to visit FMs in the towns I visit and the time has come to post about my experience.

A little background - I grew up on a small farm in Missouri where we would sell our produce to the old-time FMs in downtown St. Louis. Originally, FMs were a place where small farmers sold their produce to wholesalers who bought for retail grocery stores and markets. I remember a very long street on the south-side of downtown St. Louis where my Dad and other farmers would back-up their trucks to a central, elevated aisle. Buyers would walk up and down the aisle examining the produce and bargaining with the farmers. As our produce sold, we would unload our truck onto the aisle; the buyers would then load it onto their trucks for distribution to retail outlets. Typically, all transactions were completed a little after sunrise. We always took our best produce to the market; the bruised or damaged produce was for canning or our dinner table. It makes sense that today's retail-style FMs may still sell their best produce to wholesalers and sell the blemisheerspective.

Fast-forward to today's retail FMs which I find largely disappointing for price and quality; I'm talking about produce - not crafts and other products. I realize this is not PC but it seems strange to pay higher prices at a FM compared to a grocery store when the source is often unknown and quality is often no better and often less compared to a  retail grocer. Moreover, large, publicly-traded grocery stores (e.g., Whole Foods, Safeway, Kroger, and Walmart) typically have quality assurance (QA) programs they and their buyers adhere to; who knows what if any QA vendors at FM have. In addition, I've never observed official certification at FMs documenting a vendors claims of "organic" so how do we really know what chemicals the farmers are applying to the produce we buy? Lastly, the vendors at FMs are not the farmers who grow the food; however, this often isn't disclosed unless one asks.

From a business model perspective, it makes sense that today's retail-style FMs may still sell their best produce to wholesalers and sell the blemished and lower quality produce to the general public at FMs. Of course there are a couple of other options. I could grow my own whenever I settle down and have a garden. Also, this issue seems to be screaming for a business model solution:)

I know its cool to buy local and to support local farmers but after buying more disappointing produce (today's plums and apricots are tasteless), I'll probably stick to buying produce at chain grocery stores (e.g., whole foods and trader joes when I can find them) and using FMs to buy bread, pies, jams, and other home-made products I'm confident were made by the vendor who is willing to disclose the ingredients. I do love the feel of a FMs so will continue to go for that reason but will probably avoid the produce vendors unless I'm familiar with the grower.