Behind the scenes at the Portland Farmers' Market
Photo / Tim Greenway
Hanne Tierney of Cornerstone Farm at the farmers market in Deering Oaks Park in Portland.
Photo / Tim Greenway
Carolyn Snell of Snell Family Farm holds chard near her flower tables at the Portland Farmers’ Market in Deering Oaks Park.
For farmers, getting ready for the Portland Farmers' Market often starts the evening before, with picking goods then packing crates, and continues at sunrise the next day with loading the truck, driving an hour or more and setting up tents and tables before the market opens at 7 a.m., then packing up again at 1 p.m. and arriving back home around sunset.
For many farmers, the magic is in that in-between time, when the market bustles with visitors, some just mulling around and taking in the bright orange carrots and deep green kale, others seeking ingredients or a recipe tip for a special fresh meal, grown by local farmers.
Thousands of people flock to farmers markets for locally sourced food and a sense of community. There's so much demand, in fact, that the number of farmers markets in Maine is on the rise. There are 125 this year, up from 100 in 2012 and 63 in 2007, according to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. That's in line with their steep growth nationally, from 1,755 in 1994 to 8,268 in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture Marketing Service.
Portland's markets — there are three of them — are among the biggest and busiest in the state. The Deering Oaks Park market runs on Saturdays and Monument Square on Wednesdays, both from about April until late fall, and the Winter Farmers' Market runs from December till late-April in the Urban Farm Fermentory Bay 1 Food Hub in Portland's East Bayside neighborhood.
“We love the energy of Portland and the local food movement,” says Hanne Tierney of Cornerstone Farm, a small livestock farm in Palmyra. She also is chairperson of the Portland Farmers' Market Association, comprised of the 44 member farms that sell at one or more of the association's three markets. The Portland Farmers' Market is 247 years old, and went through various transformations since Portland voted to establish a public market in 1768.
The Saturday market is the largest, with 40 member farms participating, followed by 29 at the Wednesday market and 18 at the winter market. Tierney says this is the first year the association began counting customers regularly. Saturday's market averages about 2,000 visitors during a busy two hours.
Farmers only
Portland is unique, Tierney says, in that it is a farmer-only market. That means no more than 25% of the items offered by members can be products produced or raised by someone other than themselves. Also, sales from items derived from local plants or produce grown by the member cannot top 49% of sales. For example, a farmer selling apple bread must sell 51% or more of apples themselves, according to the market's website.
Tierney says it's not easy to tell just how much money farmers make at the markets, because there are so many variables in the products they sell and the cost to get to market. For a farmer, she says, time is the most important issue.
“My farm is 1-1/2 hours away. So for me it's a 14-hour day,” she says. If someone is in Yarmouth, she adds, you can subtract at least three hours from that. “But for us, it's definitely worth the effort. The sheer number of people who walk through the market is amazing. We move quite a bit of product.”
She and her daughter go to three other markets a week, but the Portland Saturday market is the largest. Because of the way she packs and freezes her meats, if she has leftovers from Portland, she can sell them the next day at a Sunday farmers market. But Tierney says she usually sells most of what she brings.
Some vendors sell their leftover goods wholesale after market, while others participate in gleaning programs that collect produce for the needy, such as the University of Maine's Cooperative Extension program.
In her role as the association's chairperson, Tierney calls meetings, interacts with the city, is the point person for grants and chairs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Electronic Benefit Transfer effort, where people on that program can buy wooden tokens to purchase goods.
“We're always looking for funding or grants for it,” she says of SNAP, which is expensive to run.
SNAP's administration costs comprise about $20,000 of the association's $50,000 annual budget, says treasurer Jaime Berhanu of Lalibela Farm, an organic Tempeh, vegetable and flower farm in Bowdoinham. But more farmers markets in the state have been accepting SNAP amid local efforts to improve nutrition for those who need assistance.
The association pays the city a licensing fee for the market space, plus carries liability insurance for the entire market. Each vendor also needs to have liability insurance.
Each farmer pays $100 to be a member, plus another $50 per market location, so someone who is at all three markets pays $250 total.
While some farmers find all the preparation work and time away from their farm to sell at the markets too cumbersome, Berhanu says those who do come probably wouldn't be there if they weren't making a profit.
“Farmers are very smart folks who tend to work very efficiently and don't have time to waste marketing where they are not making a profit,” she notes.
Diversifying members
Carolyn Snell of Snell Family Farm, a flower and vegetable farm in Buxton, and membership coordinator for the association, is one such farmer.
“The Portland Farmers' Market is a great way to connect with customers,” says Snell, a fourth-generation farmer who specializes in flowers. The farm started in 1926 selling apples and poultry, but later converted to flowers and vegetables. “People want high-quality flower and vegetable plants,” she adds.
She says the Portland market is the strictest in terms of what farmers are allowed to sell, and members want to keep it a farmers' rather than a craft market. Some of the artists and other vendors at the periphery of the markets, notably the one at Monument Square, are not association members.
Becoming a member requires that a farmer first apply, typically in January. Each application is screened, and the association holds a membership meeting the first Saturday of February to determine how many spaces will be added at the market. Typically, 90% of the previous year's members return.
This year, only four new spots became available. The membership wanted more diversity, so from the 20 to 30 applications, it selected two mushroom vendors, as the market didn't have such sellers. Four of the newcomers sell on Wednesday and three on Saturday. It takes a two-thirds vote to get in.
“Our market isn't inherently protectionist,” says Snell, responding to a question about whether the market tries to keep out vendors selling the same items as current members. “We only had room for four more, and we wanted more diversity.”
She explains that some small farms may not have enough volume for sales to last an entire day, or a farmer may not be a team player and isn't as likely to get in. About half of sellers at the market are organic producers, while the other half aren't.
“The thing I like about the Portland Farmers' Market is that since the rules are strict to be a producer-based market, there are a lot of fresh, raw products, not just prepared products,” Snell says.
Her family's farm also sells to restaurants. It employs 15-20, depending on the season, and has close to 50 acres, not all in active production. The farm has 10 greenhouses that are heated and five hoop houses that stretch the growing season as long as possible. It is profitable, Snell says.
Like Tierney, she says the markets are a lot of work. The day before the market, her mother rises at 5 a.m. to start listing what plants or crops will be picked. Some workers pick, while others water plants or work in the greenhouses.
Once vegetables are picked, they are washed. Some are cooled. By lunchtime, most items are picked, including the flowers, which also must be sorted and bunched. While the preparation is going on, the farm also sells from its own roadside stand daily.
Snell says the plants are loaded first onto the truck and parked in the shade. The vegetables and cut flowers are loaded late in the afternoon.
Around 3:20 a.m. the next day, raspberries and sweet peas are loaded, and the truck leaves for market at 4:30 a.m. The farm is about half an hour from Portland, so by 5 a.m. Snell and a few helpers are setting up a tent and tables to be ready for market opening at 7 a.m. By 7:30 a.m., Snell says, her tent already is busy, but the most traffic comes from 9-11 a.m.
Just before the market closes at 1 p.m. she arranges what is left over. Sometimes she trades with other farmers, but she doesn't discount items at that point. She packs up leftovers and takes them back, leaving the market around 3 p.m.
There's time for a short nap before some additional harvesting in the evening, then Snell goes to bed around 9 p.m.
She originally wanted to be a teacher, but found she liked the seasonality of farming.
“It's an intellectual puzzle,” she says of all the activity between putting a seed in the ground and selling a plant or vegetable.
“I grew up at the farmers market,” she adds. “You develop relationships with customers here. Folks have seen me grow up and I've seen them grow up. It's an intimate relationship that makes shopping and eating more meaningful.”
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