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October 1, 2007

A new crop | Bangor's weekly farmers' market is revived after a century-long hiatus

Gail VanWart restored a long-lost family tradition when she brought her blueberries downtown this summer to sell at Bangor's new farmers' market.

"My grandmother took blueberries in the early 1900s to Pickering Square," VanWart says. "All my aunts used to say they had to pick so many quarts of blueberries, pack them up on a wagon, and [then] they would ride into Bangor."

Peaked Mountain Farm, VanWart's family farm, has a 139-year-old tradition of growing blueberries in Dedham but its participation in a new weekly Bangor Farmers' Market in Pickering Square is only about two months old. The outside market, which had disappeared because no one wanted to organize it, launched Aug. 9 when Donna Mionis, of Donna's Daily Bread and Sunny Acres Farm in Levant, volunteered to facilitate the rebirth. Participating farmers and artisanal food producers, as well as city officials, hope the revitalized market will generate more revenue for their farms and attract new customers. Business and Economic Development Officer Sally Bates says the market enhances the downtown.

"It is something people said they wanted," Bates explains. "When a community gets what its members say they want, then it certainly solidifies visitors' and residents' love for the city."

Bates says she tried for years to get a farmers' market going in the downtown area, but it really needed the initiative of a local farmer to recruit fellow foodies to hawk their wares at the square. Their experience and sales numbers do more to attract other farmers than the will of an economic development department, according to Bates. So when Mionis stepped up, Bates knew the market finally had a chance to take off.

Both Bates and Mionis feel that the market is poised to grow in the coming years. "A lot of the vendors and farmers want us to be successful first, then they'll get on board," Mionis says. "Next year, we'll have a bigger pool to pick from."

Currently, seven farmers from farms within a 70-mile radius of the city set up stalls at Pickering Square every Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. They sell bread, vegetables, apples, berries, goat cheese, yogurt and grass-fed beef, pork and poultry. The closest farm is the McBrine's Vine and Branch Farm, in Bangor, and the farthest is John and Christine Alexander's Udder View Farm in Columbia.

John Alexander says while sales of his goat cheese were robust initially, they have dropped off a bit of late. He says many of his customers are professionals working in nearby office buildings, while others come into the city for day trips. Mionis says she sells between 150 and 200 loaves at $3.50 a loaf most weeks. VanWart says she sold well the first day, but her sales fell by a third the second week and then jumped up again the third week.

An unintentional side effect of the market has been something of a changing of the guard. VanWart says the farmers' presence has pushed some of the regular occupants ˆ— like teenagers on skateboards ˆ— off to the fringe. "Some of them are homeless, some are younger people who are evidently not in school and who have some issues to deal with," VanWart says. "They use language and do things that aren't polite. I think maybe it is keeping some of the business clientele from coming to the market."

This culture clash worries the vendors, and, Mionis says, next year the market may move to accommodate expected growth and avoid disruptive loiterers.

"We're going to meet to see about next year," Mionis says. "I don't know what is going to be available. I definitely want to be someplace that is accessible to the downtown area."

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