Peak Farmers Market
From Field Notes:
Call it “peak farmers market.” Or maybe the plateau of “know your farmer.”
After more than a decade of explosive growth in the local food
economy, the most visible portion of food sales within that sector has
seen a slowdown. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the growth of sales of local food at farmers markets, farm stands and through CSA models has lost momentum.
Even the rate of growth in the number of farmers markets nationwide has slowed in recent years, rising just 1.5 percent from 2013 to 2014, after several years of rapid growth.
But that’s not necessarily bad news for farmers. In fact, it could mean the entire local food movement is growing up.
The USDA calls these transactions “direct to consumer sales,” taking
into account when you buy fruits and vegetables at a farmers market or
through a CSA share.
From 2007 to 2012 the value of food sales that take place when a
farmer is face-to-face with a consumer dropped by one percent in real
dollars. For some context, from 2002 to 2007 that value increased 32
percent. The increase was 36 percent in the five-year period before
that.
Let’s go through the theories as to why this slowdown occurred.
No. 1 We’ve hit peak farmers market
One cause for the plateau could be a stagnation in the number of
people who actually care about local food. Or as the USDA puts it: a
plateau in consumer demand for local food. An explosion in farmers
markets has benefited farmers. But it might be too much of a good thing.
“In densely populated urban areas, farmers’ markets often compete
with each other for vendors and consumers,” the report reads. “In other
areas, newer, more strategically located farmers’ markets may lead to
the decline of previously established markets.”
There are only so many dollars out there being spent on local food.
At a certain point regions can be saturated with too many markets,
fragmenting the consumer base for local food....MORE
HT:
Big Picture Agriculture
