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Farmers Market has become a way of life to many small farmers in Milwaukee, USA where the stalls are passed on from parents to their children, across the generations. For the small farmer, this market ensures a better price for his produce, without the middleman coming in the way to eat away a large part of the profit.
I am writing this to you from Brookfield Public Library in Milwaukee, USA, where you have free access to the computer and communicate with people worldwide through the web. A few yards across from me here on the outside of this building is the Brookfield Civic Center Yard. It is a sunny Saturday morning and this open yard is bubbling with people. The scene reminds you of the weekly sante (shandy market) of Udupi or any such place that you can think of in India.
This morning, as on every Saturday, while everybody else in this city is still not out of the bed, small farmers from outlying areas in Milwaukee start pouring into this yard in their small trucks and SUVs (small utility vans) with farm-fresh vegetables picked up late last evening. They position themselves in their respective stalls in the yard and right on the dot at 7.30 a.m. the Farmers Market of Brookfield opens for the public.
You have several varieties of onions and tomatoes, luscious brinjals (which they call eggplants) of great size, potatoes, beetroot, watermelons, corn, peaches, apples, citrus fruits, flowers, honey and green vegetables of every sort, including my own favourite spinach (harive soppu). "Three bunches of spinach for two dollars!," says the seller, and when you actually buy it, the old man picks up one more bunch and hands it over to you as a free gift. Maybe, I am a little lucky, for not every seller here doles out such gifts. Nevertheless, it is tempting and, boy, you got a deal!
It's fall season in the U.S. and almost the fag end of farmers markets everywhere. You have about 3000 farmers markets operating in this country, with a little more than 30,000 farmers selling their produce to citydwellers from New York to San Francisco. The Brookfield Farmers Market, for example, is open on every Saturday from May 11 to October 26 every year, 7.30 in the morning to noon. The yard is pulsating with the sights and sounds familiar to those of us who have been frequenting the sante markets in India.
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| Customers rushing to buy corns and vegetables |
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Buyers of all types, men and women including many senior citizens flock the farmers markets. They know well that here you get farm fresh vegetables, products of organic farming, free from any spray of chemicals. This is totally different from the packed and cut vegetables you get from the supermarkets, and you know the hazards of pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals and inorganic fertilisers used in large scale farming. The price? Well, it is comparatively equal or lower than the supermarket prices.
"I have been coming to the Farmers Markets for more than twenty years," says an Indian housewife, now a permanent resident of Milwaukee. "I like the ambience of this market and I like to talk to the elder farmers, most of them ladies, who sell their produce with a proud, personal touch." This lady is a frequent visitor to the West Allis Farmers Market, one of the oldest and the largest in the Milwaukee area. In fact, the West Allis Market started way back in 1919 and it operates twice a week on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. "Yes, if you come here around 4 p.m., there are few vegetables left in the market. The early bird gets the better of it," adds the Indian housewife. "There is something special about the vegetables sold at the West Allis Market," adds she. "These vegetables have been picked up from the farms this very morning. They are fresh and glowing! And that's why this market opens at 1 p.m." I was not convinced. What if the vegetables have been picked up last evening? What if the seller buys bulk produce from the big supermarkets and brings them here to the Farmers Market to sell as his own produce? "No, no. This can never happen," says an official of the Farmers Market. "You know we have some kind of farm policing to ensure that these sellers bring their own produce to the market. We conduct random checking and even raids to ensure that the produce has been picked up this very morning."
The official tells me that the Farmers Market has become a way of life to many small farmers in Milwaukee, where the stalls are passed on from parents to their children, across the generations. If you have to get a stall here, you have to wait for at least ten to fifteen years for the allotment, he adds.
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A view of Brookfield Farmers Market
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For the small farmer, the Farmers Market ensures a better price for his produce, without the middleman coming in the way to eat away a large part of the profit, as is the case the world over. You can see elderly ladies sitting patiently in their stalls, waiting for customers to pick up the honey they have so carefully packed in small bottles. You can rub shoulders with young girls selling a hundred varieties of flowers, neatly packed in bunches. Bananas, corn, apples, peaches, grapes, tomatoes and leafy vegetables of every kind, and, yes, even eggs and chicken- everything goes!
For the household buyer, it's organic stuff, damn good and healthy, fresh and green, at affordable prices. "You see, these items have not been sprayed!" says a gleeful buyer.
I have also visited the Waukesha Farmers Market, located a few miles away. It works on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. from May 11 to October 26, just like the Brookfield Farmers Market. Here you have, among other things, many handmade crafts for sale as well. The Milwaukee Farmers Market Association helps organize the vendors in the Farmers Markets. In the Milwaukee area alone, there are a dozen or more Farmers Markets, the oldest among them being the Fondy Farmers Market which operates seven days a week. Other markets in the region are located in places like Cudahy, East Town, Howell Avenue, Mitchel Street, Riverwest, Sherman Park, South Milwaukee, Southshore, Wauwatosha, Silver Spring, Westown and Brown Deer. Someone here tells me that as many as 75,000 buyers walk through the stalls of the Union Square Farmers Market in New York in a day.
You will notice that at these Farmers Markets, items vary as the growing season begins and ends. For instance, the early season (beginning in May) brings in bedding plants, radishes, asparagus, and rhubarbs. Exotic fruits like strawberries and raspberries come in June. This is followed by squash (lemon), peas, snap beans, and zucchini. Corn comes after July 4, American Independence Day. In the following months, many more herb plants and squashes follow.
But right now, in September, with the season coming to a close as Fall gives way to Winter in the next few weeks, it's time for fresh apples and cider!
Look, what if the farmer has to end up with a large quantity of unsold items at the end of the day? "Oh, no worry! Even if a farmer sells just 10 per cent of his produce he has brought to the market in a day, he makes a little more money that he would have got selling his entire produce to the packers (who sell bulk items to supermarkets)," says a Farm Market official in the Brookfield Civic Center.
Photos by the author
Mr. B. Krishnananda Hegde can be contacted at bkhegde@lycos.com
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