Unpacking the terms of engagement with local food at the Farmers’ Market: Insights from Ontario

Abstract

Amidst much discussion of the values and venues of local food, the Farmers’ Market (FM) has emerged as an important, but somewhat uncertain, site of engagement for producers, consumers and local food ‘champions’. Despite the evident certainty of various operational rules, the FM should be seen as a complex and ambiguous space where (contingent) notions of local, quality, authenticity and legitimacy find expression in communications and transactions around food. This paper seeks to extend current reflections on the nature of the contemporary FM and its relationship to the tenets of local food. An empirical analysis involving sellers, shoppers and managers at 15 markets in the Province of Ontario, Canada sought to understand how participants ‘read’ the market as an operating space and subsequently construct the terms of (their) engagement. Findings suggest that Ontario FM customers wish to support farmers and farming via their food-related spending and express attachments to a wide range of alleged benefits pertaining to local food. Yet these values are also malleable in their meaning and amenable to trade-off against other considerations—particularly where social capital is concerned. The notion of ‘local’ emerges as being widely valued but also highly interpretive in its meaning and variable in its absolute importance. The paper concludes with some reflection on the degree to which the findings support, challenge or modify current normative beliefs about local food at the FM.

Introduction

Against the backdrop of an alleged decoupling of agriculture and rural communities in many developed regions, it has been argued that local food systems have the capacity to forge or rekindle positive relationships between producers and consumers and unify farm and non-farm interests—especially at the local level (Hinrichs, 2003; Lyson, 2004). On the farm side rests the potential for farming on a human scale, the possibility of improved economic viability and the ability to contribute directly to the well being of the local community through the provision of a basic necessity—food. On the consumer side alleged potential benefits include knowledge of the origins of food, access to a fresher and more authentic food product and the ability to re-personalize agriculture in the context of their own lives. Spanning both groups are the regional economic benefits associated with retaining a greater portion of the farming and food dollar in the local economy, and the environmental benefits associated with less ecologically extractive farming systems.

Whilst the potential benefits of local food systems and short(er) supply chains have been chronicled widely (e.g. Feenstra, 2002; Hinrichs, 2003; Marsden et al., 2000; Morris and Buller, 2003; Renting et al., 2003, etc.) there remain important questions concerning how effective local networks can be constructed and how they might best function. In this respect the attention of researchers is shifting not only to the various structural forms that local food initiatives might assume, but also to the terms under which they might (or, in the minds of some, must) operate given that alternative food chains are socially constructed, operationalized and regulated (Marsden, 2000). It is in this context that we are drawn to the Farmers’ Market (FM) as not only a site of exchange, but also as a venue for negotiated meaning in the local food landscape. In practical terms the FM serves as a highly visible and intuitively obvious site for food producers and consumers to find each other—a physical space in which immediacy and directness can be (re)introduced into transactions around food (Holloway and Kneafsey, 2000). For producers this presents the possibility of capturing greater value from the food product being sold; for consumers the chance to obtain products with (allegedly) enhanced qualities such as freshness and superior taste (Lamine, 2005; Sage, 2003); and for organizational actors the chance to operationalize trade in local and quality food on terms that they can (attempt to) regulate.

For analysts, the FM holds intrigue given its status as a (constructed) space for the expression of ideas and values concerning local food and the nature of its alterity or ‘otherness’ (Kirwan, 2004). Indeed, some authors assert that the FM and other direct sale arrangements embody specific sets of values and ideologies amongst food producers and consumers (Kloppenberg et al., 2000; Hinrichs, 2003). Direct agricultural markets are touted as an alternative to mainstream food outlets where producer/consumer interactions have become secondary to convenience, low prices from bulk procurement and the availability of a vast variety of food products that transcend seasonal limitations and physical distance. For some, the FM represents a gathering place for ‘enlightened food producers’ and ‘concerned consumers’ (Weatherell et al., 2003). Following this logic, it is a place and space where people who care about healthy food, farming and the environment might gather to support local producers and each other. Therein lies potential for consumers to make informed decisions about the food they purchase. A common stereotype is that the FM customer is more inquisitive about the manner in which food is produced and would be more likely to support small-scale, family farms over large-scale corporately directed enterprises. The accuracy of this view is, of course, something that is amenable to empirical investigation, as will be shown later in the paper.

The above, though partial and generalized, reflects a set of emerging possibilities on one hand, and uncertainties on the other, regarding the FM. Whilst the (re)presentation of the contemporary FM in the literature draws heavily on the semantics of alternative agriculture, local food and new cultures of consumption, the empirical realities seem ambiguous and complicated. Clearly, the FM is an alternative to conventional large-scale supermarkets that has been re-invigorated as an economic entity and community institution by shifting preferences on the consumer side. Arguably it holds great promise-in-principle for the re-linking of producer and consumer interests. However, notwithstanding the crisp clarity of charter statements and the rhetoric of promotional communications, the relationship of individual FMs to local food initiatives needs to be seen in light of information on how and why specific groups of actors hold various beliefs and exhibit widely differing heuristics and strategies. In such an exercise the FM becomes a convenient laboratory in which it is possible to examine how certain contested and contingent notions of local, quality, authenticity and legitimacy find expression in communications and transactions around food. The possibility exists also that various participants within actor groups at the market mix their behaviours and beliefs in such a way as to defy easy characterization along the lines now deeply etched into conceptual framing of local food systems (Feagan et al., 2004; Kirwan, 2006).

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an increasingly more nuanced understanding of the place of the FM vis a vis local food systems. Along the way, we wish to ascertain the degree to which certain tenets of local food are reflected in the FM experience as it is unfolding in developed regions where population densities and marketing traditions do not necessarily mirror the British and European experience. To this end we focus on the Province of Ontario, Canada. The research design implicates three actor groups—consumers, vendors/producers and market managers—and consciously moves beyond the documentation of contrasting beliefs and behaviours to explore how various actors at the market see and make assumptions about each other. In so doing the desire is to understand better how each group ‘reads’ the market as an operating space and subsequently negotiates terms of their involvement.

The balance of the paper is presented in three major sections. First, we review recent literature on alternative agriculture, local food systems and the FM as a means of foregrounding selected elements of our empirical analysis. In a second section, we present and interpret the findings of the research and move through the insights derived from analysis of the customer and vendor data, respectively. Manager perspectives are interwoven throughout to provide more generalized commentary, especially in relation to selected ‘policy dimensions’ of the FM. In reporting on consumer views, particular attention is given to the degree to which shoppers attach importance to several suggested characteristics of local food at the FM and to how these translate into expectations and conditions for participation. In reporting on vendor views, the role and significance of so-called ‘re-sellers’ at the FM is given particular attention. The paper concludes with some reflection on the degree to which the findings support, challenge or modify current normative beliefs about local food at the FM and about the nature of the FM itself.