Going bananas at the farmers market

Despite their wholesome reputation, Ontario farmers markets have lately found themselves embroiled in a messy tale of controversy and intrigue.

A CBC Marketplace investigation a few weeks ago − complete with hidden cameras, early morning stakeouts and GPS tracking − claimed to have unmasked a pair of brothers at the Peterborough farmers market as ‘phoney’ farmers who resell produce bought at the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto.

Earlier, a lengthy piece in The Globe and Mail revealed numerous ‘vicious’ struggles between farmers and resellers at farmers markets around the province, some leading to physical confrontations and lifetime bans.

At issue is whether vendors at farmers market should be allowed to sell produce that’s not the fruits of their own labour. The CBC fretted “consumers could be paying premium prices for produce with fake backstories about where it was grown.”

While no one should be lying about their wares, the whole notion that local food deserves a premium because it is more nutritious, better for the environment or imbued with other righteous properties is preposterous.

A cucumber from another country is nutritionally identical to a cucumber you grow in your backyard. Food doesn’t need a ‘backstory.’ You buy it. You eat it. End of story.

In fact, it is generally cheaper and more efficient — meaning better for the environment — to grow produce in areas that have a distinct comparative advantage and then transport it to market, rather than waste resources trying to make marginal land feed a local community. That’s why California strawberries are the earth-friendly choice.

Unless you have too much money and too much time, there’s no point getting overly concerned about the childhood experiences of your baby carrots. At its core, this is a commercial dispute between competitors.

According to the Globe: “For farmers, the main issue is that resellers don’t have to carry the high costs of running a farm … This means they can often afford to undercut farmers and still go home with higher profits.”

But the fact resellers can travel to the food terminal to buy their product − paying actual farmers for their effort plus middlemen at the food terminal − and then sell for less than other farmers who have none of these extra expenses, suggests resellers are the true economic heroes of this story.

Surely the point of a farmers market is to allow consumers convenient access to food they want to buy at the lowest cost possible. Resellers keep a lid on prices and offer greater variety.

Regardless, both the Globe and CBC demanded new regulations to shut down or shame resellers, thus preserving the ‘purity’ of farmers markets. The CBC went so far as to promote a California law that sees uniformed food police patrolling farmers markets and inspecting individual farms to ensure every head of lettuce has a verifiable provenance. Ludicrous.

We most certainly do not need another layer of government regulation complicating and suffocating the food industry. (Note: recent news reports that regional public health officials shut down a local program that was feeding the homeless because it served fresh, homemade food.)

Now for the good news. Thankfully, Waterloo Region’s premier farmers’ market appears immune to such nonsense.

St. Jacobs Farmer Market bills itself as Canada’s largest year-round farmers market. And it doesn’t get itself tied into knots over who’s a legitimate farmer and who is a reseller.

Visit the market and it’s pretty obvious who’s not selling their own produce. There’s a noisy stand flogging pineapples, bananas, lemons and limes. There’s a coffee guy. A freshly-squeezed orange juice stand. Oil olive. African bowls. Shoes. Sunglasses.

The market is chock full of blatant nonlocal products sold by blatant non-farmers. And no one seems to be suffering. Or complaining.

Director of market operations, Sheila Shantz, says she steeled herself for a rush of complaints following last month’s highprofile CBC investigation. It never came.

This absence of tension over resellers is partly explained by St. Jacobs’ unique design. “We’re not a seasonal market,” Shantz says. “We are a year-round farmers market and flea market.” Perhaps this broader focus insulates it from juvenile food fights.

The market does give authentic farmers a slight break on stall rates — those who sell only their own produce pay about $20 a week less for a standard 10 foot-wide stall.

But other than that, St Jacobs makes no distinctions. There are no requirements for special signage, as is the case at other farmers markets, to identify different classes of vendors. And they haven’t tried to crack down on resellers who compete with farmers by selling in-season produce, as has Guelph’s farmers market.

“Our market is all about developing a relationship with your vendor,” says Shantz. “You can talk to them. And our vendors selling pineapples and bananas aren’t going to tell you they’re growing their own products.”

Such transparency promotes a collegial atmosphere, she figures. “I don’t see any evidence that our farmers and resellers are not getting along.”

Which means everyone can get along with the business of selling whatever it is their customers want to buy. As a proper market should.