Farmers' Survey

People of Saturday Market have been wondering how to respond to the survey about a possible year-round, indoor farmers' market (YRIM). I'm afraid right now to even go look at the survey, but I will absolutely participate, and be as strong as I can be about any parts where I can provide my perspective.

If you haven't read the book Market Days, about farmers' market history, it's well worth a couple of hours of your day. There is a copy in the library and I think one in the SM office as well. Read again our own SM history on the website, and give yourself a hug for being one of the members of a very thoughtful membership organization, the Saturday Market. If the only point you get from this post is that, get it, because we are surviving and thriving because we have held so tightly to our traditional structure and values, and that is what will take us through this new situation. Our membership gives us a collective voice that is as strong as we want it to be. Together we have all the skills we need to make the most of whatever happens.

In name, the LCFM is still a membership organization, but they have morphed a bit in the last decade, according to how they perceive their different needs. Organic, farm-sourced produce, meats, and prepared products are booming. The industry is popular, and attracting investors. The City and County have noticed and listened to the PR and they want a piece of it. Developers and business people want the FM to succeed so that they can get a piece. It's as simple as that. SM is not getting that action because we are not for sale. We don't want any investors right now with their complications of profit motives and self-interest.  We just want to keep doing what we are doing, what is working well for us. Not that we are closed to improvements, but will they really be improvements?

We do want to continue to sell at low cost on our public land, which does give us a landlord who has some power over us. We rent from the City, and we also have great relationships of offering services to the City (we manage activity permits, food carts, and other services for the city.) It seems a solid and mutually beneficial relationship, but there are no guarantees that the city will always let us use the Park Blocks. We've been there for 34 years, but still, city councilors can change their minds. The farmers rent from the County. The County owns both of the north blocks. They have said they need more room. They have enlisted help in making the site improvements or location changes that will give them more room. Both the City and the County are sympathetic, as are we. The last thing we want is a fight with the farmers.

We all know how important our co-location is to us. Both organizations benefit greatly from the exciting, weekly outdoor seasonal market. We've worked together for all of these years and more for our mutual benefit. That said, many farmers now don't feel that this meets their needs. Many of them sell at lots of markets, every day of the week, all year round, and although the Saturday LCFM is the biggest, they have a lot of other choices. They believe that they are the draw, and SM is less essential, and they don't really feel a responsibility for our success. If they decide it's better for business to move to 5th St, or anywhere else, they will.

They do not speak with one voice, though, and we know that many of their members do think they need us, and would be resistant to moving away from us, and they do care about us. Still, if push came to shove, and they could gain the consensus of their members, they could move. Maybe, if it were to EWEB Plaza or someplace that we were interested in, we would consider going too. Since there is no location for this proposed Y-R-I-market, getting worried or excited about it is premature. If it were built where the Butterfly is, that might be fantastic for us. If it had a space we could use for Holiday Market, I would love it. But if it were too far or too different, my opinion would change. I think everyone is worried about all of the unknowns.

But let's stay in the knowns. We know we need produce, and we are committed to always having it. If the FM moved, we would endeavor to have one of our own in some form. We know we want to stay the way we are. Our membership organization, with enough participation from our members, is the strongest kind of business association ever. We can have resources to share that none of us would be able to afford on our own. We are so solid in this that I take great strength from it. I don't really feel threatened by anything the farmers do, as I know we are loved in our own right and that will not stop. People need us. So we can relax about our own future. We will manage and we will thrive.

I said in an earlier blog that the farmers are not 100 year old on the PB, that that was pure PR. They sold on the PB for fourteen years, and in 1929, despite 50% of their farmers being opposed to it, their management accepted a land donation on Broadway and Charnelton and built a building. Lots of civic leaders came to a dinner meeting and sold the reluctant farmers and they all signed off on it. Prices were still kept low, and there were lots of producers, and several problems were solved. Then the stock market failed and the Depression hit. For the next two decades everyone struggled, but there were some significant things that killed off the FM. The Grange formed a different Market Board that did not have to have the approval of all of the grange members to make decisions. They opened to greater participation in their decision-making by all kinds of other businessmen and local entities, like the County Agent. They thought they all had the same goals, but gradually the little farmers had less and less power to even make their concerns heard.

They held on until 1959. There were lots of reasons why they failed. The war effort siphoned off a lot of food and farm products, and bigger producers got the contracts with their lower prices, and when another landowner sold the land they had been using for parking and outdoor spaces for firewood sales, etc, they had no parking. Gradually more shops were brought in to fill the space, who didn't sell farm products. Supermarkets (cough cough Whole Foods) opened and people preferred shopping there. The indoor space held onto the lively and friendly atmosphere of the outdoor market for a time, but it just wasn't the same.

They had sold bonds to finance the building and the property taxes rose. All of their resources went to debt service and taxes. The finally got out of debt but there just wasn't the income for enough management, much less promotions and marketing, and finally they got a big offer for the building through a management company with a name that is still active locally. They hoped to still continue in the building and did for a couple of years, but then the SF company that had bought it decided to put in a Rite Aid. and it was over.

By then the membership organization did not have the will or means to reorganize, and it was not until the 70's when farmers were again able to sell in a group setting, with Saturday Market. That's what started up this present incarnation, and when you read the history, it's pretty concerning to see them head down that same road.

That was then and this is now. The people on the LCFM Board who are pushing for this building are farmers, for the most part, or are doing it through farmers, and they may have learned from history to not extend a controlling interest to a profit-making entity. Unfortunately city and county government are no longer much different from profit-making entities, as we can see from the closing of the Jacobs Gallery and the  current selling off of Kesey. We don't know what the farmers are planning, as a whole, but we can guess that they are not all on the same page. We don't know what the City or County are planning. We have some voice in the discussions, which are in the early stages. They are trying to figure out if the project is feasible, if it will pencil out to be a money-maker and not a drain on already drained public coffers. It will need to make money. Never mind the building costs, just consider the operational costs.

My feeling is that it will not make money if spaces are rented for $10 plus 10% or even the $40 the farmers pay now for a 10x10. There will have to be either subsidy by local governments, or higher payments by participants. If there aren't enough producers, it would seem natural to let in others who are less invested. We have already seen that many farmers don't do the selling, or even show up at the booths sometimes. They don't have the strict Maker is the Seller ethic we are so focused on, though they haven't strayed far yet. But what they offer now is that direct connection, still intact, that the shoppers want.

We all know we can't sell every day all year round, and most of us don't want to. I like our Market the way it is, and although I wouldn't block someone's plans to participate on some level in that building, it isn't for me. I probably wouldn't even spend my considerable organic food dollars there, preferring to support the farmers I already support. I saw what happened at 5th St when people went indoors, to later be kicked out by Obie when other more profitable shops were preferred. They were used. I do not want my organization to be used. I'm not against the project, and like you, I want more information, but I'm not wild about the feasibility of it. I hope I can communicate that in the survey but I am guessing it won't be easy. I'm not going to think that the one step of filling it out will replace my thoughtfulness and watchfulness about what is really going to involve me. I will continue to increase my involvement in my membership organization as I feel the increased need to guide us and make good decisions for our collective futures. I hope many of us feel the same. Show up, sell at Market, and keep us strong and vital. Promote us well to the outside world. Don't be too worried, just keep working.

But by all means, please fill out the survey as I am about to go do, and let our voices be heard. Mine is not the only opinion. If even a hundred of our members chime in, that is more than any other interest group. Our interest is in keeping what we have built. We can do it without the farmers, but we'd rather do it with them. And there is no way, ever, that I want to see my organization sell out. Not even a little. I believe in learning from history to move slowly and keep our goals and prime directives in mind. That's why we are still here, still relevant, and still the BEST!