Transcript: Regrowing Community

 

 

MARK SOMMER: Farmers’ markets, from 400 to 4,000 in less than two decades.

 

KELLI CAVI: Oh, my goodness. Look at this place. It’s beautiful.

 

MARK SOMMER: They’re sprouting like sunflowers in parking lots, town squares and metro plazas all across the country. And as the shoppers attest, they’re here for more than the food. They’re being nourished by a revived sense of place and connection.

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER: This is a community center. And every community just thrives if it has a center. It’s a vital part of the community.

 

MARK SOMMER: It’s not just the variety of veggies. It’s the variety of people who are drawn to farmers’ markets.

 

DAN BEST: Occasionally our governor and the governor’s wife will come on down. And then we have the lowest income sector comes down to the market.

 

MARK SOMMER: Today on A World of Possibilities, “Regrowing Community (One Tomato at a Time): The Remarkable Return of Farmers’ Markets”. They’re by no means solely the province of the middle class. Sprouting between the cracks in the mean streets of Brooklyn, in neighborhoods where the only food comes from liquor stores and mini‑marts, they address an unmet need for both nutritional and spiritual sustenance, often not found even in neighborhoods of apparent affluence.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: In one of the richest counties in upstate New York, there are kids actually going to bed hungry.

 

MARK SOMMER: Farmers’ markets are new to us, at least in this generation. But they’ve been the hub of community and commerce in the developing world, as in Europe, for a millennia.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: It was messy and crazy and smelly. And there were, you know, huge hunks of beef hanging from the ceiling and flies everywhere. It was very busy and noisy, and I loved it.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer. Join us for a stroll through the throngs, the music, the aromas, colors, and laughter of the farmers’ market. Welcome to A World of Possibilities.

 

All right. I’ll admit it at the outset. I’ve seen markets in Florence, Italy, bazaars in Tunisia, mercados in Muhawka(?) in the highlands of Guatemala. And I’ve loved them all. But I have a special soft spot for my hometown farmers’ market in the far northern coastal town of Arcata, California. Here, on the town plaza, every Saturday morning from April till Thanksgiving, we hold a farmers' market that brings the community together and banishes all cares amid the profusion of peppers, the bouquets of roses, the combs of honey, and the braids of garlic.

 

Live music wafts through the sunlit air while kids dance and jugglers juggle. The commercial transactions are usually quite small, but the volume of farmers' market sales across the country now tops a billion dollars a year. We stopped in at the Arcata farmers' market for the last peppers and heirloom tomatoes of the season. We ran into Christie Hellum(?), a longtime local who had recently moved to Portland, Oregon, but was back to catch the farmers' market that had been her weekly refresher for the past 30 years.

 

CHRISTIE HELLUM: It’s a ritual. We know all the farmers. You can’t find this anywhere else. It’s really hard. It’s all organic. I can get all my produce here. I know who’s growing it. I love that. I even go visit their farms. Like, one guy says, “Oh, having a party this weekend.” I go out there and stay at an old farmhouse with he and his wife. I meet them all. And it’s, like, I realize, “Oh, that’s where melons come from, this field.” It’s awesome. They’re very friendly. I’ve been to a lot of the farms and worked for them. Sometimes I go trade garlic by, you know, cutting lavender or something.

 

And it’s also-- You know, it’s a social scene. Look at this — music, food, it’s great. It’s life all around. And plus the music-- This band is, you know, really well-known. People are coming for this oftentimes, too. And, yeah, it’s all happening. I don’t want to leave here. I’m coming back.

 

MARK SOMMER: The farmers who ring the plaza with their trucks and umbrellaed stalls are all small-scale family operations within a few hours drive from town. They grow organically and work hard for limited financial returns. And the offerings aren’t just produce — weavings, jams, flowers.

 

Meet Cynthia Graebner who runs Fickle Hill Nursery just up the hill from the town plaza. She specializes in antique varieties of roses.

 

MARK SOMMER: Farmers' market are growing at an astounding rate across the country. There were maybe 400 about 15 years ago. There are now over 4,000.

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER:    You know, I don't think it surprises me at all, because it’s just-- it’s such an obvious thing to have each community being able to access the produce and the plants that are grown by its community members. And so I’m really happy to see though that it’s-- actually is becoming more of a thing. People realize that buying at a farmers' market isn’t just an alternative to going to a grocery store. It’s really an experience in itself.

 

MARK SOMMER: What is that experience for you? It’s not just a commercial transaction?

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER: Well, I think probably from the customers’ point of view is that you can answer questions about these plants. I know them intimately. I’ve propagated them from a cutting or from a seed. I grow the parent plants myself so they can actually talk to somebody who knows what they’re selling. And that’s a very rare experience in this world. And the same thing with the vegetable vendors — you can find about anything you want to know.

 

MARK SOMMER: Is it a lot of work to come and set up and then break down at the end of the day? How early do you start out from your home, when the market starts-- what?-- around 10-- 

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER: It all starts the day before for a lot of the-- For the food growers, they’re harvesting on Friday. And for me, I’m packing up my boxes, picking out the plants to bring, grooming them. They need a lot of grooming because it’s not-- everything you bring has to be ready to be picked out. And so that’s all day Friday. And then my truck is loaded. Everybody pretty much has their trucks loaded Friday night. And then depending on how far we live from market, you know, I’m-- usually get here, set up by an hour-- Takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes to unload and set up and put everything out. And then at the end, it takes-- Well, I do it-- lot faster to pack up, but-- 

 

MARK SOMMER: That’s a big commitment of time.

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER: It is, so-- It is.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m just thinking of it-- It’s clearly not completely a commercial transaction for you either. I mean, how many roses can you sell in a week?

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER: Well, it’s not only selling the roses. It’s-- You really interact with people who are plant growers. And you share information. And it’s PR. It’s community interaction, you know? Somebody says, “I need a place to live,” and then you see somebody who has a house for rent. You-- You know, you hook them up. It’s just a lot of networking goes on at this market, too.

 

Yeah, and we’re just sort of, like, okay, I’m standing here, waiting to sell plants. And I’m accessible to people who want to ask me questions. They’re not taking my time that I could be doing something else, that I’m here for the public, so. It’s a good time for that.

 

MARK SOMMER: So you don’t interpret the world as, time is money.

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER:   No, I don’t. I wish I made more, of course. But, you know, I can’t even think of it that way. I’d have to quit and do another job, you know, if you try to figure the per hour amount. Because part of it is, it’s really-- it’s the lifestyle. I have my nurseries at home. I can put a pot of beans on to cook and, you know, hopefully I turn them down to simmer, and then I can go out and work for a few hours. And then when I come back in for lunch, I can add the spices or whatever. You know? There’s a lot of tradeoffs to money and lifestyle.

 

MARK SOMMER: You know, we interviewed one local resident and she said, “Look at this place. This is our temple. This is our church.” What do you make of that?

 

CYNTHIA GRAEBNER:   What I think is that it’s a community together. This is a community center. And every community just thrives if it has a center. And this is-- And I feel like, yeah, I play a part here. And my part is just one of the little parts of the people who come here. We don’t make tons of money, but yet it’s a vital part of the community.

 

MARK SOMMER: Then there are those who arrive as customers, but just can’t help themselves. They start volunteering to help the farmers set up their booths and run them. Here’s Kelly Cavi(?), who approached our microphone when she saw us interviewing.

 

KELLI CAVI: Oh my goodness. Look at this place. It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous. It’s the only place where I can get live organic juice and I can hang out with my best friends and serve their nursery and sell wonderful, delicious jams and be surrounded by the community. It’s a community effort and we’re all here every Saturday, so. It’s wonderful.

 

MARK SOMMER: So you are actually working in one of the stalls, market stalls?

 

KELLI CAVI: Not really work. I’m volunteering. I-- We just show up, you know? And they say, “Hey, you guys want to help out?” I say, “Sure.” And I help out and that’s how it goes.

 

MARK SOMMER: Is this the first farmers' market in the country that you’ve been part of? Or did you grow up around a farmers' market?

 

KELLI CAVI: No, there was actually one. I grew up in Los Gatos, California and there was one in that community as well. And it was never, never as enthralling as this one. And there’s never as many people. And it’s just so nice to see this community out here every Saturday.

 

MARK SOMMER: So, I’ve come very often over the years, too. And what I find is that there are certain moments when it just feels like very intoxicating to be here.

 

KELLI CAVI: Yes. Yeah, I totally know what you mean. And I don’t know why. It’s in the air. They pump something in.

 

MARK SOMMER: That is what it feels like to me!

 

KELLI CAVI: I know. You know, you’re just-- I don't know. Maybe it’s just-- Look at all these happy people. That’s what it is. That’s all it is, is just that everyone has a good feeling. Look at those people dancing, you know? It’s fun, happy. There’s no reason to be sad here.

 

MARK SOMMER: Then there’s the music. Many of today’s markets feature live local music with space for people to sit or dance. Here’s Delta Nationals drummer Paul DeMark, who moved to this region from Wisconsin in the early ‘70s.

 

PAUL DeMARK: I came up here to play music. And I never left; I stayed. And I’m glad I did.

 

MARK SOMMER: And you play this farmers' market very often?

 

PAUL DeMARK: No. We play once or twice a year. But this band’s been together, the Delta Nationals, seven years. And this is our-- absolutely one of our favorite gigs. It’s one of our best performance venues, believe it or not. It’s-- People dance. They’re watching us. They’re listening. So it’s one of our absolute favorite places to play.

 

MARK SOMMER: What do you like about the farmers' market here?

 

PAUL DeMARK: It’s-- The atmosphere is just fantastic. When the sun comes out like it is now, people are in a fantastic mood. They’re enjoying themselves. Some people are dancing. They’re shopping. It’s just a tremendously uplifting environment. It’s-- You know, it’s got everything you’d want in a performance venue. Plus, they pay you, so it’s nice.

 

MARK SOMMER: What is it about the atmosphere here that makes it better for a band than-- I mean, do you prefer this to, say, a gig in a bar or at a dance hall?

 

PAUL DeMARK: This is great. It’s fresh air. There’s a lot of people here that would never see you in other venues. We have lots of people that come out and they’d never heard the band. They buy our CD. We make some new friends here. People are in a fantastic mood, so that adds to the atmosphere. And people are actually sitting down. It’s a concert venue. It’s, like, a showcase venue for us, because people are checking the band out. They’re walking around. There’s kids here-- you know?-- which you won’t see at a nighttime gig. So it’s very much of a family environment. And it’s fun for the band in that respect. So we see a lot of new people here and a lot of younger people.

 

MARK SOMMER: You’ve been here long enough to have seen this market evolve. You were probably here near the beginning of when the market started. How has it changed over the years?

 

PAUL DeMARK: Well, it’s grown obviously. I’m not sure when it started, but I would think I was here when it started. It’s just a-- It seems like every year, it’s gotten bigger. Now it’s at capacity. So there’s a waiting line for booths. More and more people know about it. People from all over the county come to this one because this is the biggest farmers' market. Obviously there’s farmers' markets in almost every community in the county now. But this is really the biggest one. I think people all over know about it. And people will come from, regionally, all over just to be a part of this, you know, whether they’re shopping or they’re a vendor here. So it’s become, I think, the number one farmers' market in the county.

 

MARK SOMMER: Did you grow up around farmers' markets back in-- what was it?-- Wisconsin?

 

PAUL DeMARK: I grew up in southeast Wisconsin, Racine. No, I never saw one until I got to Arcata. They might have existed. We used to go out for drives and there’d be your classic farmers' market stand on the side of the road. But never saw a farmers' market till I got here. I know in Madison, Wisconsin, where I used to go to school, they’ve evolved a tremendous farmers' market around the state capitol building, which is, you know, about four times bigger than this. But, you know, I really love it here. It’s just-- My-- You know, I always tell people, this is one of my absolute favorite places to play because of its-- it’s just a tremendous atmosphere here.

 

MARK SOMMER: You know, we’ve been interviewing people all around The United States about various kinds of farmers' markets. And they seem to be--  almost an epidemic of farmers' markets. Most of them don’t have live music. And I’m just wondering how it is that Arcata decided to do that, to feature local talent.

 

PAUL DeMARK: I really don’t know how they decided. I think-- I’ve heard it was the vendors really requested music. Humboldt County is just a-- very much a music crazy place. It’s extremely rich. There’s all kinds of different music here. And I think really the vendors drove it. The farmers themselves said, “We want live music.” And that’s how it started. I’m surprised more farmers' markets don’t have live music. You know, they insist on having it every single week, a live band. And it’s tremendous. I think every band that plays here absolutely loves it.

 

MARK SOMMER: So this is not your day job.

 

PAUL DeMARK: Do you want to know what my day job is?

 

MARK SOMMER: What’s your day job, Paul?

 

PAUL DeMARK: I’m the director of public relations and marketing for College of the Redwoods, a community college in Humboldt County.

 

MARK SOMMER: But this is your joy.

 

PAUL DeMARK: This is my absolute artistic hobby and joy. I’ve been doing this since 1970. And I love it. So yeah, it’s a tremendous joy and it’s a big part of my life.

 

MARK SOMMER: Enough already from my hometown farmers' market. After a short break, we’ll head to Westchester, New York, a wealthy suburb with a surprising pocket of poverty, for which a local has developed a unique farmers' market solution.

 

ANNOUNCER: Please visit aworldofpossibilities.com to view a new special video podcast of the Arcata farmers' market.

 

SPEAKER: Yeah, we get people dancing, it’s-- in the background. We see people juggling. Just so much activity and life that it just kind of helps feed into our energy and our creativity. Sometimes I actually forget what I’m doing because I’m watching the crowd and watching kids running around or dancing.

 

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to A World of Possibilities. To hear the podcast of this program and to access our show archives, please visit our website at AWorldOfPossibilities.com or visit iTunes.

 

MARK SOMMER: Ralph Cwerman is a veteran of international politics at the highest levels. He’s worked at the U.N. and served as a senior aide to Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu. Now in an intriguing career change, he’s decided to turn some of his energy towards more local affairs as president and cofounder of the Humpty Dumpty Institute. It’s a non-profit that creates innovative public/private partnerships addressing complex international problems.

 

Humpty Dumpty has created a program that enables low income residents to receive matching funds for the dollars they spend at participating farmers' markets. This gives them the purchasing power and hopefully instills in them the habit of buying fresh produce at these markets. To explain his journey from global to local, and his new project, Ralph Cwerman joins us from New York. 

 

So what takes you from international politics and the Middle East and the U.N. to upstate New York to work on a farmers' market initiative?

 

RALPH CWERMAN: I’ll tell you what the connection is. I was working with several of my colleagues. And we were listening to a report. I think it was over the radio. And it was about the plight of children in The United States. And in one of the richest counties in upstate New York, there were kids actually going to bed hungry. And when we heard that, it kind of-- everyone stopped doing what they were doing and just started listening. I think all of us at the same moment kind of said, “You know what? We are so focused on international. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about doing something here in the U.S.”

 

So we put out our network. We put out our feelers. We spoke to a lot of different individuals about what kind of activities or what kind of work, especially in the food security area, in the hunger area, that we could do. But there’s something that was very appealing to us about this farmers' market initiative.

 

So this was a very appealing project. It is giving access to fresh fruit and vegetables to a group of people that, under historical circumstances and economical circumstances, never had that kind of access. And we’re talking about those people who are food stamp holders. The idea that we can put together a matching fund (so for every five dollars that a food stamp holder spends in a fresh farmers' market, they can add another five dollars from a fund that we set up) seemed to work on all cylinders, and from the perspective that we kind of normally, in an entrepreneurial way, go in and establish a program.

 

MARK SOMMER: What was the county in upstate New York that was wealthy and yet had-- 

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Westchester County.

 

MARK SOMMER: Whoa. Well, for listeners who don’t know Westchester County, can you describe the kind of demographic?

 

RALPH CWERMAN: It’s one of the most elite, richest counties in, not only New York State, it’s in the country. The per capita income is high. I don't know what the specific numbers are, but it is generally considered to be one of the more affluent suburbs, affluent counties of New York State. And the fact that kids were going to bed hungry in this county is just-- it’s shocking.

 

MARK SOMMER: Are you actually setting up these farmers' markets? Are you creating these incentive systems for food stamp recipients to use farmers' markets?

 

RALPH CWERMAN: We’re creating the incentives. The goal of the program is to increase the number of food stamp recipients who come to existing farmers' markets. We’re not creating new farmers' markets.

 

MARK SOMMER: And so what you’ve found in your research is that, by and large, food stamp recipients and low income individuals don’t necessarily use farmers' markets right now.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: No, because up until only very recently they have not had the access, you know? Grocery stores don’t want to build their grocery stores in these neighborhoods because they don’t think it’s economically viable. And farmers' markets, I mean, the movement for farmers' markets really is now coming just into its own. So there really weren’t that many out there. And there has been kind of a mini-explosion now. And there’s more and more being created every day. So we find that there is now a way for these disadvantaged neighborhoods and these populations to have greater access.

 

But the incentive really is to give them some financial incentive to come and to be able to buy those fresh fruit and vegetables, and basically to double their purchasing power.

 

MARK SOMMER: It’ll be interesting to see whether there’s a kind of a culture shift that occurs as some food stamp recipients who’ve maybe never thought of farmers' markets before, have just gone to the local 7-Eleven of mini-mart because that’s the only market in the area.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: That’s right. And it’s a lot of fun to go shopping at a farmers' market. And, you know, we hope that there will be a new discovery here. Obviously our main goal is, and where we are focused a lot is setting up a system that will be able to, you know, really, in a very accurate way, track the number of food stamp recipients. We have devised such a system. And with that, to go to other states, governors, decision makers in both Federal and state governments and to say, “Look — this is a very interesting program. It’s a pilot program. We’ve increased the number of food stamp recipients and given this extra number access to fresh fruit and vegetables. We want you to duplicate this effort in your state now.”

 

And, you know, if they have the kind of empirical evidence that we hope to be able to show to them, then we think we have a good shot at duplicating and at kind of, you know, enlarging and growing this whole pilot project. That’s really what is behind our effort. I mean, you can go in and give ‘x’ number of dollars to support a program like this. But when the money runs out, what do you do then?

 

MARK SOMMER: I was just thinking of that, because it’s a lovely, noble, small scale experiment. But there are only so many people who will donate for so long for this-- 

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Exactly. So what do you do? Giving the money and setting up the program is only step one. In many ways, step two and step three are much more difficult and require a greater finesse and greater effort, which is trying to find new sources of funding that will make this program sustainable over a longer period of time.

 

MARK SOMMER: We recently interviewed Ian Marvey who is a community food activist, who, together with others, founded a community farm and farmers' market in a neglected corner of Brooklyn. It’s apparently really prospering. He was working with youth at risk and got them involved in growing vegetables. And these kids who had grown up on the streets with no nurturing in their own background found that they-- found nurturing instincts in themselves when they started to plant, you know, seedlings.

 

And then they grew so much that they decided to start this farmers' market in a pretty poor part of town.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Fabulous.

 

MARK SOMMER: Very interesting. And apparently they’re getting calls from all over the country from others in low income neighborhoods who want to start something similar, which combines the growing of food and the farmers' market.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Right. And we’re supportive of that 100%. That’s a wonderful activity. And we wish that program continued success. There was a recent segment on 60 Minutes on CBS that also talked about that from a community level and community activists who were looking to do that. Because, you know, the local grocery stores just aren’t built there. And, you know, the ones who have some experience, the community leaders who have some experience, who are out there and are seeing that, that is-- I think they’re looking to that. Again, it’s the same model. You know, if it’s successful in Brooklyn, in a low income neighborhood in Brooklyn, why can’t it be successful in Detroit or in Miami or, you know, anywhere else around the country?

 

MARK SOMMER: You know, if you travel in the developing world, you see that, what are the equivalent of farmers' markets, they simply call them the market, the mercado, whatever. They are often the market of the poor. I mean, all segments of society, but particularly poor people come to them. And they are, as you say, more than a commercial venture. They are a gathering place for the entire community.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Well, you know, we are doing some very large feeding programs in some very, very poor areas of the developing world as well. We have a big program, for example, in Laos in one of the poorest districts in that country. And we are also working Sri Lanka, in Jaffna, which is to the north-- in the north of the country where, you know, we’re working about ten miles away from a war that is being resumed after a few years.

 

And you’re absolutely right. The markets, when you go to a market in the developing world, it is an opportunity to earn money. And, you know, it’s all subsistence farming and, you know, people will come with a few extra fruits and vegetables and will try to sell those. But it’s a social affair as well. And it’s a time to exchange news and greetings with your neighbors and your community members. You know, it is a very cultural thing. It’s not just a commercial enterprise.

 

MARK SOMMER: When you think of, say, poor neighborhoods in inner cities in The United States and food stamp recipients, they’re often, because they’re under such financial pressure, there’s often a kind of a fragmentation of the community, although there are sometimes very strong social networks. But could farmers' markets also, because they are such cultural institutions and because they do draw people together to linger and find one another and-- As a secondary benefit, could they be knitting together?

 

RALPH CWERMAN: I think it does. There’s a sense of unity, I mean, especially when something works. You know? You know the old saying, “Success has many fathers, and failure is an orphan.” When something works and the community is starting to benefit, everybody feels some ownership of that success and it makes you feel good. And it makes you feel positive. And it makes you feel that perhaps, you know, if you are facing all sorts of obstacles in a very low income neighborhood with crime, you know, with all of the other challenges that someone like that faces, when there’s a positive development that takes place, it’s only good. And yes, it can be used to create momentum for changes in other areas. You know, it’s a lot of cultural, mental, physical activity that takes place. But it’s fantastic if it works.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m once again struck by this sort of diversity of both your organization’s activities and of your personal interest, that you would be working in Laos and then you would be working in Westchester, in Mount Kisco, New York.

 

RALPH CWERMAN: Well, people in need are people in need. I mean, if you go to Laos and you see the level of poverty there, even in some of the worst neighborhoods that you could go to here in this country, at least to my knowledge and in my experience, you wouldn’t see anything that comes close to that level. So it’s a different scale. It’s a different magnitude.

 

But people in need are people in need. And, you know, when you hear shocking news like hungry kids are going to bed every night in some parts of the U.S., or-- You know, another shocking statistic is that, you know, ‘x’ number of kids are illiterate or don’t read, you know? It wakes you up a little bit. And we were all very happy to have heard that report, that radio report that I referred to earlier, because it kind of knocked some sense into us and said, “You know what? Continue the work in Laos. Continue the work in Sri Lanka. Continue with your passion to remove land mines. But don’t forget where you come from.”

 

MARK SOMMER: Ralph Cwerman. I’m Mark Sommer. And this is A World of Possibilities distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

 

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. We enjoy hearing from our listeners. If you wish to contact us (and we hope you do) here’s how. Please direct emails to comments@aworldofpossibilities.com. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer. And this is A World of Possibilities. This program, “Regrowing Community (One Tomato at a Time): The Remarkable Return of Farmers' Markets” is underwritten by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Coming up, variety is the spice of farmers' markets. And in no place or respect is the variety of people and backgrounds more diverse than in the California State capitol of Sacramento. But first, let’s join Sonia DeMarta, a Venezuelan-born immigrant to the new chic village of Lexington, Massachusetts.

 

Some 230 years ago, Paul Revere began his historic horseback ride to warn locals of the redcoats imminent invasion. As a child in Venezuela, Sonia relished the sights, sounds, and sometimes less than savory smells of her hometown market. As an adult, she moved to Lexington, now an upscale suburb of Boston. It’s a charming, picture perfect community. But till recently, it’s lacked the community building asset of a local farmers' market. Sonia wondered where all the farmers had gone, and set about to find out. She joins us now from Lexington to describe the Venezuelan market that inspired her to create one in her adopted hometown.

 

Tell us what the farmers' market was like down there. I know there are markets all over the developing world and in many countries that are-- in some ways, have been a rich tradition. What was it like in Venezuela?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Well, it was in the center of town and it was every Saturday. And it was messy and crazy and smelly, and, you know, people with wheelbarrows selling pineapples or selling avocados, you know, just little tiny vendors. And then there were, you know, huge hunks of beef hanging from the ceiling and flies everywhere and people scaling their fish and scales flying everywhere.

 

MARK SOMMER: Oh, wow.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: So, you know, it was very busy and noisy and I loved it.

 

MARK SOMMER: So you would tag along beside your mother and see all of these vivid sights?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Yes.

 

MARK SOMMER: So what did you like most about the farmers' market as you were growing up? Was it actually the food itself? Or was it some other aspect of it?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: I liked the humanity of it. I think-- You know, I liked the fact that you feel like life is taking place, and this is how people really live. It’s not aseptic. It’s not cleaned up. This is real life.

 

MARK SOMMER: Did people hang out there beyond just the task of buying food?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Oh, yeah. You’d see, you know, neighbors chatting and vendors talking with each other and comparing prices and-- It’s a community event. Everybody goes there every Saturday and does their shopping. That’s where you get the best bananas or the best tomatoes or whatever. And you have your favorite vendors that you go to. But I see that happening at our farmers' market, the customers developing a relationship with the vendors and getting to know their children who are also vendors, and asking about them. You know, it’s a real community feeling.

 

MARK SOMMER: Was there music in the farmers' market in Venezuela?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: No. No, other than what the flies made.

 

MARK SOMMER: The flies made music, right. So you moved to The United States, Lexington, which is-- what?-- a relatively affluent community in the suburbs of Boston.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Yes. It is a wealthy community. It’s where the-- It’s the birthplace of the American Revolution. And every year, we have the reenactment of the-- you know, Paul Revere riding through town at midnight, and then a reenactment of the battle between the British and the Minutemen and the bell ringing.

 

MARK SOMMER: So what caused you to think there should be a farmers' market in Lexington? After all, it probably has really upscale supermarkets.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: We have a Stop & Shop, which, you know, is okay. It’s a regular grocery store. Nothing is local. You know, things are flown in from other areas. So they’re kind of tasteless. We have a Whole Foods the next town over. And then we have Wilson Farms and Busa Farms. And they both have farm stands. But I have a masters in environmental management. And my area of interest was food production. So I read a lot about what was going on with the farmers and local farms.

 

And then about six or seven years ago, I read an article in the World Watch Magazine called “Where Have All the Farmers Gone?” by Brian Halweil. And he writes a lot about food production and food issues for the World Watch Magazine. And that article really-- it really scared me. And it made me think a lot about, you know, what can I do to try to help local farmers?

 

And we lived in Newton for a couple years. And they have a great farmers’ market. It’s been going on for about 25 years. And I kept thinking, “Why doesn’t Lexington have that? Why can’t Lexington do that?” And then I realized, you know, if I want that, I’m going to have to do it.

 

MARK SOMMER: So at this point, how many farmers do you have involved?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: I think we have about eight. And that includes the goat cheese and the beef. And then total vendors, we have-- I think we have 23. And then we have other people who come and go, like the maple syrup. That’s a seasonal thing, things like that. So we have a rotating, what we called a rotating tent.

 

MARK SOMMER: Tent?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Mm-hmm. Because they’re all set up in little tents, like a canopy.

 

MARK SOMMER: Oh, right.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Yeah.

 

MARK SOMMER: And it goes on just during the summer season, from spring to fall?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: It goes on from June to the end of October, which is the Massachusetts growing season. Of course now that growing season is getting longer.

 

MARK SOMMER: So as you do this project, and you stand there amidst all of this activity, does it remind you at all of what you grew up with in Venezuela? Or is it immaculate by comparison?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: It’s immaculate by comparison. And we have Board of Health on our case, you know? I went to a farmers' market conference in D.C. three years ago. And one of the people who was speaking was the manager of the market in Barcelona, Spain, La Boqueria market. And he was talking about how they have the side of beef hanging there. And I said-- I burst out laughing in his face. And he said, “What is a matter,” you know? I said, “I just can’t imagine our Board of Health, the look on their faces if they saw a side of beef hanging at the farmers' market in Lexington.” And he said, “But why? It is so beautiful, you know? The customer comes and they-- you cut off the piece of meat they want.” And I just couldn’t imagine.

 

They get upset if somebody has samples out that aren’t covered and if you don’t have toothpicks or gloves. You know? We’re so careful about hygiene. I just-- It’s just so different, you know, the sound of the flies and all that. Actually, two Tuesdays ago, we were inundated with bees. Apparently there are two homes on the street nearby where they keep bees. And because it’s the end of the season and there are fewer flowers and it was warm, the bees were hungry. And they were out looking for food. And they descended upon one of the bakers and the beekeeper. And people were getting really upset because they thought that they were doing it on purpose. But it was amazing, the sound they were making, and just this buzzing. But the beekeeper kept saying, “Don’t worry. They’re not aggressive.”

 

MARK SOMMER: Yeah, right. It’s true. If you are a beekeeper, you know not to be afraid of them. When you were growing up and you went to the farmers' market with none of these health regulations, was anyone getting sick?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: You know, maybe people were, but who would have known about it, you know? In this country, we’re so much more litigious. And we expect things to run a certain way. We expect things to be, I don’t want to say perfect, but I think in the third world, there’s a little bit more resignation. You accept that you’re going to be sick. You accept that there’s going to be hunger. I don't know. If something goes wrong, it’s just part of life. You don’t even think of suing someone. You don’t think of that because it’s just not part of the culture. Whereas here, I think everybody’s really worried about being sued.

 

MARK SOMMER: Coming from Venezuela, do you feel like we need to reach a kind of a happy medium between the resignation to sort of chronic ill health and a kind of obsession with health that can happen at the other end?

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Yeah, I don't know where that happy medium is, because I know that if something does happen, you know, people panic. But I wonder also if because of our being so careful and not being exposed to germs, we’re more susceptible. We’re making ourselves, in a way, more weak. Does that make sense?

 

MARK SOMMER: Yes, it does.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: We haven’t immunized ourselves.

 

MARK SOMMER: That’s what I was going to say. I mean, vaccinations, for example, are based on giving you a little bit of the thing that might hurt you, but just a little bit so that you build up antibodies.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Right. And we certainly built up our antibodies in the third world.

 

MARK SOMMER: Right. Right. You’re carrying all kinds of biota inside your stomach.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: Yeah.

 

MARK SOMMER: Well, I keep being drawn back to your first experience, because I think in some ways, that’s the most vivid.

 

SONIA DeMARTA: I think that farmers' markets and locally grown are an idea whose time has come. I think that people are desperate for real food and food that actually tastes like something. I remember when I first came to this country, eating an apple was such a joyless, tasteless experience. And it wasn’t until I started to eat other varieties besides red delicious that I started to realize, you know, apples are really good. They’re not pithy and tasteless.

 

And then I started to learn more about why they’re so pithy and tasteless, and, you know, when I started to eat local apples, and then, oh, you go apple picking and you can eat them right off a tree-- You know, I think people are just ready for it. And I wish that grocery stores and the food industry would take note of it and take it more seriously.

 

MARK SOMMER: Sonia DeMarta. In a moment, we head back across the country to the California State capitol.

 

For a special treat, check out the new video version of A World of Possibilities, a ten-minute tour of the farmers' market in the Pacific coastal town of Arcata, California on a sunny autumn Saturday.

 

SPEAKER: It just takes a real love of the land and what you’re doing. And the people that do it around here and make a living at it, my hat’s off to ‘em.

 

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. We love hearing from our listeners. Contact us at comments@aworldofpossibilities.com.

 

MARK SOMMER: A lesser known sister to cosmopolitan San Francisco, Sacramento’s actually one of the most diverse cities in the country, and nowhere more than at the local farmers' market which draws on the diverse nationalities and ethnicities of its residents and the productive farmlands of the Sacramento Valley.

 

We turn now to Dan Best, manager of ten certified farmers' markets in the Sacramento area. He’s promoted California farmers' markets for more than 25 years. He says it’s a place where classes, races, ages, and ethnicities all meet and mingle.

 

DAN BEST: Occasionally, our governor and the governor's wife will come on down. And then we have the lowest income spectrum come down to the market. So in terms of, you know, economic base and diversity, it’s pretty widespread. In terms of ethnic origins or cultural markets, it’s-- Again, you know, Sacramento, it’s just a microcosm of what Sacramento is. And all the different cultures come on in. And it’s just an international food-fest there.

 

MARK SOMMER: As I understand it, a number of your markets are located near low income housing project. Is that right?

 

DAN BEST: Well, we actually started the Sunday market underneath the freeway. It was the one that was a focus, original focus of our-- as a program to bring low cost food to the inner city. We go by the philosophy, again, just trying to keep prices low so that, you know, they can always have low-cost food. And we tend to also preach the concept of eating in season. You actually find that what nature provides you is actually what you probably need. You need that vitamin C in the winter, which is broccoli and citrus. You have vitamin A in a lot of your squash and your peaches. Melons hydrate you during the‑‑ in the summer. I mean, these things that you need, and nature provides it, so. We try to connect them with that. We try to connect them with the farm.

 

They have school tours. We try to bring kids into the farmers' market so we can give them a farmers' market experience that has to do with fruits and vegetables, and not cookies. Some of our markets, we don’t allow any kind of sweet bakery goods whatsoever. We want the kids to eat strawberries. I mean, we want them-- We don’t want them to bite into a cookie and all of a sudden eat a strawberry and say, “Wow, you know, that cookie’s a lot sweeter.”

 

What we want to do is that when they start thinking about, “Wow, I want something sweet to eat,” that they think about fresh fruit. We’re such big supporters of that WIC program, or the WIC Farmers' Market program, because what it does, it has a nutritional, educational element. It actually tells the people why they should be eating fresh fruits and vegetables rather than just giving them something that, say, “Here,” you know, “Go get some fruits and vegetables.” Well, why would I want that when I can just go get something that I can microwave? And that’s the element that makes the most sense.

 

We’ve located in a ton of different low income areas, and we’ve failed. We failed our markets right and left because there wasn’t the demand. Demand hadn’t been created. The people didn’t know why they should want to have a farmers' market in their area.

 

MARK SOMMER: That’s a very interesting experience you had, that people in low income areas-- I’m sure not all of them, but-- at the markets failed because people didn’t even see that the food in the farmers' markets as being sort of food as they recognized it, because what they were used to perhaps was mini-marts and places where there are hardly any fruits or vegetables.

 

DAN BEST: I think that, and they were used to prepared foods. We’re talking sometimes, third generations of packaged food. One of the classic stories that I tell was that the local park farmers' market, we were right in the park. We had shade. We had music. We’re playing blues music and everything else. We had a child that picked up a piece of fruit and asked his mom, says, “Mom, what is this?” And the mom looked at it and looked up at the farmer, says, “What is that?” And the farmer said, “Well, that is a peach.” And just breaks your heart, because, you know, when you realize that, you know, who’s teaching? And that’s why we decided that we-- you know, before we can go into an area, we really need to create a demand. Well, that’s what makes that Sunday market so special. It’s kind of like a Times Square. We get everybody rubbing elbows with everybody else.

 

And our feeling is that what we’re doing is that we’re breaking down barriers. I mean, the biggest thing in terms of conflict in the world is that people fear the unknown. If they don’t really know each other, then they fear each other. And then that creates that hatred kind of thing because they don’t really know. Well, we put ‘em all together. And they all have one thing in common, and that(?) is(?) trying to get to the farmers’ fruit.

 

MARK SOMMER: It’s very interesting. I’ve experienced the same thing, including in the developing world. I mean, all over the developing world, the market is the-- sort of the hub of the entire city. You go to a place like Oaxaca in Mexico, there are flowers there. There are meats there. And people go there to hang out, as well as to-- the way they do in malls. Kids hang out in malls. But in other parts of the world, in the developing world, they hang out in the market. And the market is filled with these fruits and vegetables.

 

DAN BEST: We look at it as a great mosaic of our humanity where you take all of these different people. At one time, you might hear five or ten different languages. And amongst those, you could start breaking those into dialects of each one of those things, because it’s all happening at once. And the broken English that’s spoken down there is actually the language of the market, is that we all tend to speak the same language. And you don’t have to communicate much to say, you know, “Fifty cents a pound,” and-- where it’s two dollars a pound at the store. That works.

 

And we’re actually offering that which the stores can’t even offer. We’re offering truly tree-ripened peaches, I mean, that are too delicate to ship, otherwise they get flat heads and they smoosh. They same thing with-- You know, when they say vine-ripened tomatoes, I mean, we actually have tomatoes that were ripened on the vine and things that you can’t find in the store. The variety of cultural vegetables that are-- I don’t even know how to cook them.

 

MARK SOMMER: Yeah, I would think you call them cultural vegetables. I know that immigrant farmers all across The United States, immigrant communities are starting to produce farmers who are bringing their products to the marketplace. And it’s diversifying the range of fruits and vegetables in American food culture.

 

DAN BEST: Right. What I’m trying to do with my southeast Asian growers now, because we-- There is a point where we say, well, we have way too many southeast Asian or Asian vegetables for the demand that we have. But what we don’t have is a lot of collard greens, purple hulls, black-eyed peas, a lot of the Southern vegetables that the southeast Asian has the ability and the talent and the skills to grow. Because it’s very similar to what they already grow in terms of vegetable farming, that we can be able to supply to groups of our neighborhoods that otherwise we don’t have those kind of vegetables. We don’t have really, really, really good collard greens growers.

 

Now we do. We’ve gotten people to change some of the stuff that they know how to grow for themselves. And now we’re training them or asking them to grow things for other people. And so they’re diversifying their ability to produce, so that we can also supply a greater diversity of customer.

 

MARK SOMMER: That makes a lot of sense, to combine the farmers' markets with locally grown food, food that’s grown by some of the people in the very community.

 

DAN BEST: It creates a stronger nucleus of sustainable food-- a food supply. I mean, we really-- People should have to stop-- There’s a couple thing people have to do. ‘Course, we’re the preachers, you know? One of them is that they have to, you know, stop just thinking that food comes from this grocery store. They have to reconnect it to find out how food is grown and where it’s grown and start growing it themselves.

 

Secondly, they have to learn how to cook again. Cooking isn’t putting something in the microwave. And they need to eat together. I mean, families need to eat together. If people were-- Families need to cook together. If we had all that kind of concept, you know, I think we’d do some good in other aspects of the world, too.

 

MARK SOMMER: You know, it’s kind of ironic. You say, you know, all of these things. People need to learn to cook, to raise their own food, et cetera. It’s new to us in this generation, but this is the way people always did it until about a generation ago. I mean, it was inescapable. You did it all.

 

DAN BEST: Yeah, we’ve somehow outpaced ourselves and we lost that which was the most important. When you really look about what’s essential for us to survive, you know, it’s the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat. I mean, you know, health is everything. People just lost track that, you know, basically in-- the basic needs of life is to be healthy and to eat and drink good water and breathe fresh air. And it’s not about videogames or Lexuses or the sport event or how-- you know, total convenience. I mean, basically you have to put value on the family sitting down, cooking together, eating together, and value on the food that they eat.

 

I mean, why would you, you know, look for the bargain? Buy the best. I mean, you put the best gas in your Lexus. Why don’t you put good food in your body?

 

MARK SOMMER: Dan Best. Thirty years ago, my wife and I spent a memorable few months living with a local Mayan Indian family in a village in the highlands of Guatemala. Every Sunday, the entire community converged for the weekly market on the cobbled town square beneath the giant ceiba tree, whose limbs created a shaded canopy 100 feet across. Scores of vendors laid out their produce, ranging from bananas to avocados on blankets spread across the cobbles. And they sat patiently waiting for customers and friends to stroll by. No hurry here.

 

As the loudspeakers played music, everyone simply hung out, sometimes bargaining, sometimes gossiping, often laughing. It was a welcome respite from what was, for most, a pretty hard life, scraping a harvest out of the steep mountainsides and depleted soils of a 3,000 year-old community. It was here where I first developed a passion for markets — not the stock market or the supermarket, the mega-mall or the big box discount mart, but the human scale, human powered food markets where produce, commerce, and community co-mingle.

 

For a nation that is often over-fed, we’re undernourished in more ways than one. We both eat things that aren’t good for us, some of which don’t even qualify as food. But we shop for and prepare and eat them in isolation from one another. Nourishment is a many dimensional affair. It’s as much about our connection with each other, with the farmers who grow our food and with the land that yields their bounty as it is about the vitamins and minerals contained in the food we eat.

 

Farmers' markets bring all this back to us in ways that recent generations have forgotten. Yes, as recently as a generation ago, there were farm stands in rural routes just outside most American cities. But they were usually just one farmer at a time. Farmers' markets as we know them are something altogether their own, fulfilling a range of non-material needs we scarcely admit we feel, along with the very tangible concerns we have about where our food is coming from and how it’s being grown.

 

It’s a sign of health that farmers' markets are re-sprouting from the fallow soil of our depleted social landscapes. They’re one of our most hopeful signs of life at a time when so much else in our politics and culture is riddled with cynicism and despair. There are commons re-growing from its roots. So if you haven’t yet tried one, make a point on your next shopping trip. And if you’re a regular, check out those sweet onions in the far corner. They’ve got a flavor all their own.

 

I’m Mark Sommer, and this has been A World of Possibilities. Thanks for listening.

 

ANNOUNCER: You’ve been listening to A World of Possibilities. This program was produced and edited by Chuck Rogers with administrative support from Naihma Deady Production engineer is Tofu Mike Schwartz. Video producer is Tom Voorhees with special thanks to Jonathan Speaker. Support for this program is provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

 

END