Let me first briefly explain what Growing Home does. Growing Home is a USDA certified organic urban farm located in Englewood. They have a paid job training program each growing season for people with employment barriers. Production Assistants, participants in the program, learn transferable skills in agriculture, project management, and effective communication.

In addition to the job training program, Growing Home sells its produce through several outlets. In this blog, I want to talk about just one of the ways the produce is sold – farmer’s markets. Farmer’s markets are one of my favorite places to be and work at, so I thought I would tell you a bit about why they are so great and how they could be even better. To get the inside scoop, I asked Growing Home’s Food Access and Distribution Manager some questions about markets.

So why are farmers’ markets so great? For starters, a strong community around food is built. People in this community get super excited about things like a new variety of tomato, they are genuinely curious and ask lots of questions, and they truly value all of the hard work a farmer puts into growing their produce. It’s a super supportive, creative, and fun group of people to interact with every week.

But that’s not all! Many farmer’s markets have also made the local and artisanal products more accessible to all by accepting several forms of nutritional assistance, such as LINK and Farmer’s Markets coupons (WIC and senior assistance). One difficulty with farmer’s markets is that local, organic, and small business products are inherently more expensive, because they are higher quality, require more labor, and small businesses need to stay afloat. This can create a divide in who is able to access and benefit from these products. However, by accepting forms of nutritional assistance and offering a double value program, these products become somewhat more accessible to people with lower incomes.

Unfortunately, price is not the only barrier to accessing products from farmer’s markets. Location is also an issue. In Chicago specifically, there is a disproportionate number of farmer’s market on the north side compared to the south side. If you know anything about Chicago, you are probably aware of the racial and income disparities between the north and the south sides. With bus and train fare, the cost of transportation and time constraints of getting across the city can be an impediment for many. Fortunately, there are more farmer’s markets opening on the south side. This provides people who live on the south side easier access to farmer’s markets. It also provides farmers and artisans from the south side another place to sell their products. This way, people who choose to shop at these farmer’s markets are directly buying from and supporting local businesses from their immediate community. Growing Home looks forward to participating in a couple of these markets, so more of the produce stays in the community in which it is grown.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg! Farmer’s markets are extraordinary places with lots of good, and some not so goods that are being improved with awareness, creativity, and direct action. So if you haven’t yet, I’d highly recommend experiencing a farmers’ market soon (ps summer is the best time to)!