To the Editor: Chappaqua Farmers Market - access to local produce and an asset to our community
Monday, August 22, 2011
by Will Wedge
Regarding NewCastleNOW.org‘s August 12, 2011, article, “Can New Castle Keep D’Agostino’s?,” some off-topic comments posted by Richard Arthor regarding the Chappaqua Farmers Market need to be rebutted in the interest of accuracy and fairness.
Mr. Arthor’s gripings about food safety at the Chappaqua Farmers Market are reckless and alarmist. He should check his facts before making erroneous and irresponsible claims—especially where public health and safety are concerned. Mr. Arthor states that as an “ex food broker” he “knows many food handling laws.” But clearly he knows nothing of those that govern farmer’s markets. Chappaqua Farmers Market vendors are in compliance with NY State and Westchester County Health Department food-safety regulations covering the provision and sale of raw and prepared foods at farmer’s markets. They do so because it is in the best interest of sustaining their businesses, not just because it is the law.
It’s central to the nature of a farmer’s market that the products are substantially fresher, and produced much closer to home, than anything one can get in a chain supermarket. Although some chain supermarkets like Whole Foods calibrate their marketing to extol the “localness” of certain products they sell, even there the consumer is at least one step, and usually many more, removed from the person who raised the steer, aged the stilton, caught the striper or picked the strawberries.
But not so at the Chappaqua Farmers Market or any of the multitude of other thriving farmer’s markets in Westchester. Here customers have direct relationships with dedicated people who grow or produce what they sell—it is an unmediated, honest connection with one’s food. Knowing exactly where your food comes from is a core value of farmer’s markets, and the good individuals who organize these markets constantly strive to create the highest level of transparency and traceability. We should laud the efforts the people who organize the Chappaqua Farmers Market and cheer the Town’s support by providing the train-station venue; it’s an example of the private sector and town government getting it right for the community. Farmer’s markets protect public health and customers reap many benefits from farm-direct marketing, including ever-wider access to fresh, local, sustainably-produced healthy foods.
Food safety is broken in our country precisely because there is no chain of moral custody and responsibility in big agribusiness—not to mention because of the very nature of what it sells and how it’s made. Do you think that Jeffrey Ettinger, president of Hormel Foods, or Jody Horner, president of Cargill Meat Solutions, lose sleep when their products are implicated in e. coli or salmonella outbreaks or their operations are raided by OSHA for workplace safety violations? I’ll venture a guess not.
It is distasteful that Mr. Arthor stoops to fear mongering in his comments about the Chappaqua Farmers Market: “who wants to get sick?” And he is uninformed when he says the market “really gives nothing back to this community” in economic terms. But rather than trumpet the good old chamber-of-commerce chestnuts about taxes and rents and fees, Mr. Arthor should perhaps read some studies conducted over many years by many municipalities across the country that prove conclusively that farmer’s markets are economic and cultural engines that help to build communities. Some are collected here by the Project for Public Spaces, in “Measuring the Impact of Public Markets and Farmers Markets on Local Economies.”
Or he could just drive to Pleasantville and ask the mayor, Peter Scherer.
With respect to the DAG situation—even a tree-huggin’ unreconstructed liberal like myself needs a place to get some Cherry Garcia at 8:30 on Sunday night, and other things one can’t get at the Chappaqua Farmers Market, like toilet paper or Cheetos. If the DAG closes, instead of another chain pharmacy, I hope that a quality grocer takes its place. I’ll certainly shop there.
Will Wedge provided advice to the organizers of the Chappaqua Farmers Market when it was launching in the fall of 2010.
Bravo Will! Perfectly stated.
The comparison in the previous post of Mrs. Green’s produce to the farm fresh fruits and vegetables is astounding. Fresh picked vegetables from local farms versus picked over vegetables days, maybe weeks old vegetables at Mrs. Green’s. And Mrs. Green’s vegetables and fruit are no bargain either. I’ll give my money directly to the farmer any day of the week. The organizer’s have done a wonderful job and get my thanks for the continuation of this community event.
I’ve loved the market on Saturdays. It’s great! We have our friends from out of town meet us there with their kids (and dogs). But no matter how great it is (we had a great book store - remember?) if people don’t frequent it, it won’t succeed. So time will tell whether it’s a success.
I’d love to know whether people go there for raw materials or prepared foods or both (for me? both). Is New Castle cooking or ordering out mainly? I can’t tell.
I fully support the farmer’s market. It is good for our community. And it can & should be good for our downtown merchants since it brings people down downtown on Saturdays. But we need a mechanism through which government can work with the shopkeepers to find ways for the Chappaqua Farmers Market and the merchants to get “synergy” from one another. I believe that a strong Chamber of Commerce would help. We also need a real downtown policy. Having merchants come to the table with their ideas etc. Bottom line, we need everyone to work together for the benefit of all.
Using the words found in the first paragraph of the above letter, in the interest of accuracy and fairness, why must it be a secret that the organizers of the Chappaqua Farmers Market, no matter how well meaning, are charging each vendor $60 or more for each display each Saturday? Assuming a minimum of 20 vendors each Saturday, this means the organizers earn at least $1,200 in net, possibly untaxed revenue for all of the vendors’ hard work. That’s at least $62,400 in annual revenue earned by the Farmers Market organizers. The question every reasonable person and responsible Chappaqua resident has the right to ask is, how much of this possibly never taxed, “organizers’ revenue” is ever given back to the community? What does the town get back for providing the train station venue and cleanup services? When the rest of us are squeezed to pay ever higher taxes to the town and the school district, are the Farmers Market organizers paying their fair share? How is the Farmers Market “an economic engine” for Chappaqua, beyond serving so for the organizers themselves?
The claim of the wholesomeness of Farmers Market products cannot be supported in an absolute sense, either. My own experience as a former patron of the Chappaqua Farmers Market is that products in a jar are not always of the quality they purport to have. The “pure honey” I purchased on a Saturday in May was watery and evidently diluted, not worth the above-average price I paid for the small jar.
In the spirit of open, civil, civic discourse this column claims to encourage, I disagree fully with the unbased, if not biased, comments of the above letter’s author and agree fully with the courageous, if not inconvenient, truth spoken by Richard Arthor.
I agree with Will’s comments. Not only are we providing an outlet for local farmers and access to really fresh food, but we are even supporting some budding local entrepeneurs who have set up granola and lemonade stands. In addition, its an opportunity to hear some of the local musical talent- this weeks jazz band was terrific.
Look, the downtown of Chappaqua needed this shot in the arm. It’s the first un-sad occurrence in the downtown in years. The weekly gatherings have been attractive to lots of residents as well as visitors. I’ve run into house-hunting couples, visiting relatives of residents, my friends and my kids’ friends. I see people of all ages, including people with young children. I like Rob Greenstein’s idea of getting the farmers’ market people together with the chamber of commerce that should exist. Times have changed. The former laissez-faire attitude has to change. According to the D’Agostino article, our town board wrote to the landlord, but board members should have working relationships with (and phone numbers of) all landlords in New Castle, no matter how remote or uninvolved those landlords may be. I hope the town has such a Rolodex (or the modern equivalent).
A dose of positive energy for the downtown. The first in a long, long time. Not everything is perfect with the market but so what, it is a step in a positive direction. How long has it been that we could say that about the downtown?
We appreciate the constructive input about the Chappaqua Farmers Market. CFM was conceived by local volunteers and the Town of New Castle as a way to bring together our community, draw shoppers to the downtown hamlet and to support locally-raised and locally-produced food. It is a not-for-profit organization.
The market does support local merchants and businesses, and we intend to encourage more such partnerships as we move into our fall season.
Nancy Lyman and Priscilla Sorensen
Chappaqua Farmers Market
