For the past several months now, a bit of a running battle has been happening in the land of the farmer's markets -- specifically, way down yonder in the paw-paw patch we know as the 17th Street Farmer's Market.
It seems that Style Weekly has drawn the ire of local marketeers, largely a reaction to a single sentence that offers praise for the South of the James Market and chides the 17th Street Farmer's Market in the same breath.
"Every Saturday morning, the little farmers’ market that could kicks the teeth out of the farmers’ market that seems to dry up a little more each season in Shockoe Bottom," Deveron Timberlake wrote in a brief piece ("Pie-Eyed in South Side") on July 2.
That brief, off-handed mentioned by Timberlake generated some mild buzz -- including a joint letter-to-the-editor written by three area market managers.
These inappropriate words are aimed at the 17th Street Market, one of America’s oldest public markets (established in 1779), and they create a false impression of the market community that we would like to correct.
The volunteers, staff and vendors at Richmond’s farmers’ markets consider themselves part of one big community. We want to see each other succeed. The 17th Street Farmers’ Market is the flagship market and stands as an inspiration to the Richmond area’s entire market community. This market has endured for centuries, often under very difficult circumstances, and has paved the way for the proliferation of the newer neighborhood markets.
True that. The 17th Street market is venerable and has persevered through years of adversity. That it remains in operation today has far more to do with the dedication of its vendors and rotating staff than it does with the commitment of its owner, the City of Richmond.
But let's look past the war of words. Let's take a peek at what a future vision for local food could look like.
Even as the Virginia Farm Bureau calls on Virginia families to spend $10 a week on local produce, hundreds of Richmond residents are already turning out to savor the season at a growing number of community-centric markets. Not that neighborhood boundaries matter much when your favorite organic farmer is selling this week's harvest or when peak tomato time hits.
Richmonders literally can't run a corner without hitting a crate of fresh corn stacked at a market stand. Save Our Food, a program operated by the Farm Bureau to promote local food, cites four markets within 30 miles of the Fan -- and it misses a handful of others, including the hugely popular South of the James Market and the new Lakeside Farmer's Market and Ellwood-Thompson's new parking lot market.
HomeStyle, a monthly home and garden insert in Style Weekly, spotlighted four of our local markets in August -- including the 17th Street Farmer's Market. Writer and food critic Brandon Fox must've had a great time doing research for her article:
Richmond has embraced the locavore movement with the fervor of the newly converted. It’s as if the big daddy of them all, the 17th Street Farmer’s Market, suddenly begat a couple of little markets, who in turn, spawned a few of their own. Suddenly, local, fresh-from-the farm goods seem to be around every corner. Of course, markets in Goochland, Ashland, and Chesterfield have been around for a while, but others closer to and in the city, like the South of the James Market and the market on Lakeside, are new this year. Are more planned for the future? It might just be a good idea. Gina Collins of Victory Farms, says that right now “that pod of people (who want local food) isn’t just the usual suspects, it’s expanded way beyond that in the last two years.”
With all of this fresh, local energy in the Richmond area, you have to wonder why the City of Richmond isn't making a more focused investment in the future of the 17th Street Farmer's Market -- both as a destination for residents of the region and tourists, and as a bit of an economic engine for downtown Richmond.
Let's take it even further:
- What would it look like if someone -- a Ukrop's or Ellwood-Thompson's or Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden -- really turned up the heat on Richmond's market mania?
- How about a dozen markets traveling around the Richmond region, setting up shop once a week or every few weeks in Ginter Park and Fulton Hill and Carytown?
- How about the 17th Street Farmer's Market re-roofed and enclosed with good parking, and operating as a central hub for local truck farmers bringing goods to market and for local retailers looking for quality, local produce? (Does anyone remember when that model was the bread-and-butter for the Bottom?)
- How about a small local market once a week in the parking lot of every Ukrop's in the region?
What if the vision wasn't to create a bunch of markets, but to provide access to fresh, local and affordable foods to all residents of the Richmond region?
The opportunity for the region to support local agriculture and provide fresh produce and other foods to residents -- including many whose options for fresh and local are extremely limited -- is huge.
