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New Millboro-area farmers' market to open in June
By Gina Hamilton • Contributing Writer
MILLBORO SPRINGS - Organizers seeking to establish a farmers' market announced on Tuesday they have found a location for the new Bath County Farmers' Market - the covered porch at Lickety Splits restaurant at the intersection of Route 39 West and Route 42. They tentatively plan to open in June, depending on the availability of produce, on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon, continuing to October.
Healthy eating and buying locally was the impetus for Harmony Leonard and Donna Campagna to begin seeking information and vendors for this enterprise in February. They wanted to create an opportunity for people to buy locally grown products. Since then, they have talked to many people and held frequent meetings, inviting individuals from the food buyer for Washington and Lee University in Lexington to Cooperative Extension staff from Harrisonburg, Blacksburg, and Highland and Rockbridge counties, chamber and county officials, and Betty Mitchell, the executive director of the Highland Center in Monterey, which operates a successful farm- ers' market.
"The local foods movement reminds me of the World War II Victory Gardens," Leonard said recently. "With the economy in the state it's in, we are seeing more and more people returning to gardening. And not only are people returning to gardening, but large organizations are returning to buying local."
The women's search for "how to" information on establishing a market led them to attend the Community, Farm and New Food Systems Conference in March in Weyers Cave, and to visit the Staunton/Augusta Farmers' Market in April. They have also focused on organizational responsibilities ranging from establishing market regulations and fees to naming officers, and planning for future community outreach that would include educational opportunities for high school students.
In their meeting with Mitchell, she encouraged them to keep it simple, making it easy for vendors to participate, and adapting the market to the community. Her suggestions included getting the market up and running this year, pursuing the directory of producers with the Cooperative Extension and contacting Rodney Leech about livestock and maple syrup producers. Leech is the animal science Extension agent for Highland and Bath counties in Monterey.
In Harrisonburg, Amber Vallotton, the Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences Extension agent serving Augusta, Bath, Highland, Rockingham, and Rockbridge counties, said her discussion with the organizers in Millboro focused on areas including previous attempts at farmers' markets, food sources, where people typically purchase their food, as well as on the increasing demand for locally produced foods, reducing driving costs, and some obstacles and challenges to setting up new markets.
"For example, a community may have all the best intentions in the world and there may be lots of demand for locally produced food, but if you have no vendor base or consistency of product week after week, the market will quickly die," Vallotton said. "There needs to be a variety (i.e. nobody wants fivevendors all selling tomatoes). It is best to have a mix of various products such as fresh produce, eggs, meat/poultry, flowers, baked goods, ornamental plants, etc."
She also discussed other topics of what a farmers' market entails, such as liability concerns, food safety, product availability, seasonality issues, and market management essentials.
Noting she was very impressed with the amount of work that had already been done by the end of April, Vallotton said, "Their careful planning and desire to move ahead wisely will help the market to be successful." She added, "Part of our suggested input was for them to continue to network with other farmers' markets and learn from others who are veterans."
According to Vallotton, farmers' markets are increasing in the state; at last count there were about 108. "While farmer's markets are just one direct marketing outlet, they provide a place for communities to come together and celebrate the local flavor of an area," she said.
"In addition to being able to purchase fresh, nutritious food, farmers' markets allow folks the chance to put a face behind the farmer or producer that is otherwise anonymous in our supermarket consumer culture," Vallotton said.
Buying locally
In Lexington, university "food and wine guy" Christopher Carpenter said he also encouraged the women to set up the market. "Everyone has to drive to Lexington or the other side of the mountain to get food," he said. "What if you had your farmers up there growing the food and you could buy it? How many miles would that save you? And produce doesn't store well."
He added, "I just think this is the way for (people in) every county to help themselves and reduce our imprint on our environment."
As special projects coordinator at Washington and Lee University, one of his jobs is local food sourcing. "We're serving upward of 3,000 meals a day to students and some faculty, and some through our quick-stop area where they do salad bars, salads and sandwiches, and in the main dining hall," he said, noting meals are served yearround, even though it slows down during the summer, but programs continue.
"This year, purchasing has been a little haphazard," he said about the local-buy effort. "We did have a local harvest meal Oct. 1 that fed about 625 people and 95 percent of it was locally sourced," Carpenter said. This included all the proteins, herbs, desserts and breads. Only tropical fruit was not local.
"Everything was (purchased) within 60 miles; the average traveling distance for the majority of our food is over 1,800 miles," he said. "For us, I've been able to findeverything locally, apple butter, jams, jellies, flours, chicken, beef, pork. We're fortunate to live in an area that used to be called the bread basket of America."
Noting students have become more health conscious, he said all this is being driven by students across the state, and local food comes under the aspect of sustainability. "They don't want all the chemicals in food, and they want to know where the food is coming from. And this is where taste comes in. Most obvious is the tomato, traveling from across the country or locally grown," Carpenter said.
He said the university would buy from the Millboro market, even though he usually buys through various vendors and tries to coordinate all local produce delivery from one source. "If they can't service us on a big level, I'll send them over to sororities and fraternities where they're cooking differently," Carpenter said.
In her continuing research, Leonard came across the recently published Economic Impact to Virginia's Economy report from the Cooperative Extension. It stated that if every household in Bath County spent $10 of its total food dollars on fresh local produce and farm-based Virginia products, the annual community food dollars generated would be $1,597,440. "Amazing," she said.
Leonard emphasized that "we are not doing this as a money making venture. What we are doing is creating a space as a service to the community. We believe strongly if the space is created, people in our community will have access to good food at a reduced cost and it will also create an economic opportunity for people to participate in the local foods movement."
And based on the market's mission statement, she added, "The market is a community activity that will give people the opportunity to come together to support each other, and what a better way than through food!"
At this market start-up season, she said there are no fees for vendors or a percentage taken of sales. "What they make, they make as profit,"Leonard said.
More information about the new market is available by e-mail, bacofarmmkt@yahoo.com, or by calling Leonard at (540) 997-0239, or Campagna at (540) 997-0098.
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