Published: May 13, 2008 11:55 am            

Soaring grocery prices make farmers markets more appealing to some

Trisha Tull can give about a million reasons why you should shop at a farmers market, and why she does as well. Freshness, taste, travel time, cost and community are only a few.

“I love knowing the people who grow my food. I love knowing the food is locally grown and didn’t travel 1,500 miles to get here. I love eating by season starting with asparagus in the spring and ending with winter squash in the fall,” Tull said. “It’s the way life should be — you should be connected to your food.”

The age of American farming has been waning for the last 50 years, if not the last century. Days when most American families grew their food — or at the very least purchased it locally — are long gone. The last two generations of Americans know next to nothing about farming.

The number of people living on farms in the United States comprises less than 10 percent of the nation’s rural population.

“It’s time to get the community connected to its food,” Tull said, as she gently perused the fresh kale and radishes that local farmer David Crum had just picked that morning to bring to the Farmers Market at Preservation Park in Jeffersonville. “People don’t know where food comes from, except the grocery.”

Or McDonald’s. And with food costs soaring — the Consumer Price Index put food costs at about 4.5 percent more this year than last — more people are looking for alternatives to the grocery store and finding farmers markets.

An unscientific survey conducted by The Evening News and The Tribune that compared prices for meat and produce at the Farmers Markets held at Preservation Park and the Bardstown Road Farmers Market in Louisville found that for the same nine products the consumer would save $10.10 by opting for the market instead of the Kroger produce aisle and meat counter.

Crum’s asparagus, kale, radishes, eggs and herbs traveled 19 miles from Henryville, while Kroger’s produce traveled either about 2,281 miles from California or about 879 miles from Florida.

Five pounds of ground beef — organic, grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic free — cost $4.95 less than the alternative at Kroger.

Fresh eggs Crum collected from his hens the same morning were sold to market customers for 69 cents less than Kroger’s Eggland’s Best organic eggs. Mixed greens at the market cost $1.25 a bunch; a bunch at Kroger costs $2.29.

“You know first of all the food is fresh, and the prices are very reasonable,” said Artie Oldsen, after he picked up some produce from Crum’s stand in the park. “With inflation today, these prices are the best.”

And low-income families are no longer excluded from the fresh, local food equation. In 1992, Indiana began the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The program is federally funded by the USDA, with a 30 percent match from the state, and participants in Indiana’s WIC — Women, Infants, and Children — program are offered WIC checks at local farmers markets across the state.

More than 25,000 WIC participants redeemed $225,000 worth of checks at 29 farmers market locations in 19 counties across the state in 2000. With the dramatic increase in farmers’ markets throughout the state and the rest of the country since, the number of WIC participants purchasing local produce from farmers’ markets has substantially grown.

The Charlestown Farmers Market, the New Albany State Street Farmers Market and the New Albany Farmers Market at Bank and Market streets accept WIC checks.

The USDA directory of farmers markets operating in the U.S. grew 7 percent from 2005 to 2006, with 4,093 operating in 2005 to 4,385 operating in 2006. Total sales at those markets went from $888 million in 2000 to $1 billion in 2005.

In Indiana, there are 77 farmers markets operating in 69 counties, according to a list tallied by the state last year.

Crum farms only two of his 18 acres to grow vegetables and fruits, and uses some of the land for his chickens. He’s retired and the produce he sells at the farmers market makes up a good part of his income — “a very necessary part,” he said.

“I’ve just always enjoyed growing things,” Crum said. “People who have been coming here get to know me.

“If you can look a person in the eye and know they grew it, you feel better than something you’d get at a grocery store.”

        

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