With farmers markets in bloom throughout Minnesota, some tips to start your own – Agweek

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Minnesota celebrates National Farmers’ Market Week this month at a time when produce in the state is at its most abundant.

National Farmers’ Market Week is a yearly celebration — held this year Aug. 6-12 — sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), highlighting the value markets bring to communities and the important role they play in the U.S. food system.

“Farmers’ markets play a vital role in Minnesota’s local food system, helping connect consumers with fresh, local, and nutritious foods in their communities,” said MDA Assistant Commissioner Patrice Bailey.

Sandy Dietz of Whitewater Gardens Farm in Altura, Minnesota, is a vendor at the Winona Farmers’ Market, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

“Farmers’ markets are a crucial part of our community and supporting our local farmers,” Dietz said. “For many, these markets are our main source of income, and they are an important way to get fresh, healthy food to our communities and support a resilient food system.”

Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association

Executive Director Kathy Zeman said farmers’ markets do more than just strengthen local economies.

“These markets are not just about transactions; they are about cultivating meaningful relationships between farmers and customers, nurturing a thriving local food ecosystem, fostering connections among friends and new acquaintances, and ensuring that everyone has access to wholesome, locally grown food,” Zeman said.

A record number of 375 farmers’ markets are currently located in all corners of the state, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

One of the newest markets in the state is put on in Rochester, Minnesota, by the

Village Agricultural Cooperative,

which is in its second year of hosting the Village Farmers’ Market at the History Center of Olmsted County. The summer market is held every Tuesday through the summer until Oct. 24. The 20 weeks for 2023 are eight weeks more than 2022.

“This is our second year of our farmers market, and we have just grown and grown and grown. I think every market is getting a little bit better,” said Amanda Nigon-Crowley, director and co-founder of the Village Agricultural Cooperative. “We’re not going to be huge right off the bat, but it’s the people who show up and are dedicated.”

Rochester City Council member Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick is one of the vendors at the Village Farmers Market, and has spent the last few years converting her downtown property into an urban farm. Kirkpatrick, who spoke at the Aug. 8 farmers market, helped get the Village Agricultural Cooperative off the ground in 2019.

“Do you know that a local farmers market can bring money into our local economy, and that farmers markets help to elevate nutrition security for the participants and the growers themselves?” Kirkpatrick said.

For someone looking to begin a new farmers market in their community, Nigon-Crowley recommends first making sure the space is available for one.

“I don’t think you necessarily need beginning capital, but you do need an open and welcoming community, which has the essentials to meet the needs,” she said, referring to things such as an open space for vendors (preferably a pavilion), restrooms and room for parking.

She also said a farmers market should begin with a simple goal.

“Our goal right away was to identify five to 10 farmers within our network who would sell with us for the first year,” she said. “That was our goal, just to get people from our diverse community, primarily recent immigrant groups, to the market, selling their produce.”

When planning a farmers market, Nigon-Crowley said it’s important to think about what brings in revenue and what will generate interest.

“It’s important to have a multifaceted market that will bring in a variety of people,” she said. “Some people might want prepared food, some people might want cottage foods, and some people might want succulents, and plants prepared, and produce, and some people might want artwork. Just generating like a multitude of opportunities that will bring people to your market and keep people coming back.”

Doing a fair amount of marketing is important to make sure that vendors who put a lot of time and effort into selling are able to turn a profit.

“If it’s not worthwhile for them to be here, they won’t keep coming here,” she said of vendors. “Fortunately, for our vendors so far, so much of what’s important to them is being a part of the community and starting and founding their own business. So we’re all learning and we’re all growing together.”

Chris Allen, farmers market manager for the Village, said that farmers are obviously the most important part of a farmers’ market.

“You can’t really have a farmers’ market without them,” Allen said of farmers.

For the Village, that meant not only using some of the 200-plus growers they have involved, but reaching out beyond that number because many of the Village growers farm for their own families. Still, Allen said they recommend any of their growers who are comfortable selling at the market to do so.

“They were shocked that they went home with $80 from their tomatoes,” she said of some of the new vendors this year. “But some of them are uncomfortable growing things and then bringing them here, and meeting strangers.”

The eight additional markets this year turned out to be a challenge at the beginning due to the drought in southeast Minnesota, Allen said.

“This year, there’s a drought, and so it was really rough because the first two, three weeks, we didn’t have that much produce,” she said.

To make up for that, Allen said they invited more artist booths to the market, which she said complimented the group “beautifully.”

“Creators, creative people, and people that naturally find each other, even if they weren’t at a farmers market,” she said of the vendors. “They want to meet people directly. They want to talk to people one on one. So it builds community.”

The $5 table fee at the Village Farmers’ Market goes to paying for performing artists or events at the weekly markets.

“We actually pay our musicians to come because as artists, they’re always asked to volunteer,” Allen said.

“Our biggest rule is be nice, because I think if you’re nice to your neighbor, and nice to the people around you, you are going to be successful,” Allen said of rules for the Village Farmers’ Market

There are also more serious, state-mandated rules that farmers markets have to abide by as well.

“If you sell cottage foods, you need a

cottage food producer certificate,

and if you’re selling samples or actual consumable foods, you need to have a license, so we have a few things that we need to follow,” Allen said. “But we don’t necessarily limit who can come, and we don’t want to stop anyone from selling their fresh produce.”

For a newer market in a location where there’s already a larger farmers’ market, Allen’s advice is to reach out to them before starting a new one.

“The first thing we did is we went to the Rochester Farmers Market, the much larger Farmers Market here in town, and they’re absolutely lovely,” Allen said. “We told them that we were going to start one, and that it wouldn’t be a competition for them because we’re going to be on Tuesday nights. So we scheduled our farmers market so it’d be absolutely no conflict for them. And not only that, but we’re kind of building the confidence of farmers so that they have the opportunity to be fed into that larger market.”

Last year, Allen said the Village had a farmer who grew the confidence to sell at a farmers market at the Village market and has know advanced to the Rochester Farmers Market.

“And they’re just seeing so much success, so it’s such a win-win all around,” she said.