>Harriet Festing, Research Associate
>University of London, Wye College
>Wye, Ashford, Kent TN25 5AH
>Tel: 01233 812401 Fax: 01233 813498
>
Harriet -
Could not find your original inquiry, but thought if you were traveling the
U.S. you might consider the many rural farmers markets that supply consumers
in small and mid-sized towns.
Our own West Plains Area Farmers Market brings together growers and
producers from a wide geographic area (for our part of the state) for three
days a week during the main season (March through October), and Saturdays
only during the colder months. We have a permanent building on a long-term
lease basis with the city of West Plains, so our customers know where to
find us each year, besides providing cover during inclement weather. This
lease/permanent building site also allows us to remain unrestricted in our
activities. Several markets close to us are restricted on the products they
can sell by the owners of the lots on which they have permission to hold the
market. The last two years we have even had special pre-Christmas sale days
offering baked goods, produce, canned goods, etc for gift giving by
enclosing our building temporarily with plastic. All our members must sell
only their own goods, eliminating the brokers, and helping to do our bit to
preserve our local family farms by providing a low-cost, regional outlet to
the public.
The market in our area that I have been most impressed with is in
Fayetteville, Arkansas. The city has closed off the area around their old
courthouse to autos, and several days a week farmers bring their items to
the location, back up their trucks, set up tables and sell a wonderful
assortment of items. Because Fayetteville is so much larger than our town,
the overall tone and content vary greatly, but it is a very exciting market,
and certainly worth seeing. For information on this market, you could
contact someone at ATTRA since they're located in Fayetteville. Their phone
(U.S.) is 1-800-346-9140 or perhaps can be reached in care of the ATTRAnews
editor, David Zodrow at <davidz@ncatfyv.uark.edu>.
Hope this is relevant to your search. The answers I could find reflected
more toward ethnic and specialty markets, but in a way, our rural markets
are quite special too.
If you end up in our part of the world, please be sure to stop by and see
our market, and our business operation as well. We have a combined
aquaculture and hydroponic facility where we raise Tilapia along with
vegetables and herbs in our greenhouse.
Best of luck
Paula Speraneo
S&S Aqua Farm
8386 County Road 8820
West Plains, MO
417-256-5124