Calgary Farmers’ Market Goes Corporate?

The Calgary Farmers’ Market has become a fixture of the Calgary culinary and local food community. In fact, it was the place where I eventually discovered the joys (and pricey-ness) of local food fare. Some of my favourite farmers still sell there, like Valta Bison and the Innisfail Growers co-op.

However, the Farmers’ Market has always had its downsides (aside from being a giant stroller-pushing yuppie haven). The fact is that many of the vendors there sell things that aren’t even remotely local–even when locally grown products of the same kind exist. Not only that, but the majority of prepared food vendors use non-local (or even Canadian) products and pile up tons of styrofoam, napkins, plastic forks and knives (not to mention food waste, which I’m not sure is composted). The Calgary Farmers’ Market has always been an imperfect source of local food and related products.

Which makes some news I read over at Forage Foods chef Wade Sirois’ blog “At the Root” to be somewhat unsurprising. Sirois reports that the market manager is suggesting that, in order to maintain “market share,” the Calgary Farmers’ Market should become a for-profit corporation. Farmers’ markets can’t do this at present (they can only be operated as cooperatives, NGOs or sponsored) so this would require a major change in farmers’ market regulations to do so.

Sirois brings up important points about how this will add increased bureaucratic costs and cut out vendors and customers in the process. We all know how we already pay high prices for local food, and this can only get worse. Sirois argues that the new location of the farmers’ market will amount to some kind of a food mall. All of this is true, and unfortunate for the local food and local economic situation in Calgary.

I’m not really concerned about the health and existence of the market itself. I stopped going to the Calgary Farmers’ Market a while ago due to the remarkable waste and immovable throngs of shoppers and inflated prices–so I’m not really worried about losing the current entity. In fact, if the whole thing folded it might offer the opportunity for those vendors to find smaller, more community-oriented locations rather than the drive & park fest that the current location sits at. My major concern is the precedent this will set for farmers’ markets in general.

There must have been some reason why farmers’ markets were never allowed to incorporate before. My guess is that those would cease to be entities owned and operated by small to medium producers for their own benefit, or run by an NGO for the benefit of the local community. Sponsorships, even, would ensure that a sponsoring group–corporate or otherwise–would not have complete invested interests in the project. Allowing corporate farmers’ markets would allow the same situation we have with chain restaurants, department stores and 7-11’s. These giants would be able to carve themselves out a monopoly by working at a scale far beyond that of the small operation. And the market would have a say who is there, and could easily exclude the smallest of producers simply because they don’t have the money to be there or compete with more successful ones. Decisions will be made on the basis of who will bring in the most revenue–not who provides the most unique, productive or community-enriching service.

It’s not the Calgary Farmers’ Market we should be worried about. We should be worried about farmers’ markets in general. Maybe now is the time for people like us, who care about local food for purposes beyond the bottom line to come up with new solutions. For example, my church started a community-supported agriculture project this summer. When was the last time your vegetables at the Farmers’ Market cost you $16 in a week? Perhaps we, as communities should start our own grassroots markets that we can actually walk to. Since there’s a considerable lack of affordable public space, call a local church or your community centre to check out the possibilities. Maybe we should think about starting a Calgary Community Farmers’ Market Foundation so we can work together with communities and producers to supply Calgarians with healthy, affordable local foods. Maybe this development is actually a good thing that will force us to think outside the current mall mentality when it comes to our food. The sky is the limit, really.

Photo courtesy Scott Weisbrod with a CC license.

Tagged as: agriculture, alberta, At the Root, Calgary, calgary farmers market, community supported agriculture, corporate interests, food security and food sovereignty, grassroots, Wade Sirois