- Every day is something new. There are always new programs to let vendors know about and to help them get engaged with. Sometimes it’s more about helping them understand how new programs such as the WIC Fruit & Vegetable program will be a great income generator in the long run and may even have a critical effect on redemption rates of the traditional Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) checks.

- You have to be informed on what plant diseases are effecting your vendors. Each week brings new customers to your market who are looking for specific products and new chances to education about the role of weather in vegetable production. Just speaking with some vendors last night brought to my attention that downy mildew in cucumbers is on its way to the Southern Tier of NYS. This will mean a possible drop in the supply of cucumbers. In turn this is an opportunity to educate customers at the market about how while our weather has not been nearly as wet or cool as 2009 which effected tomato production, all of these issues (blight, downy mildew, etc..) are a natural occurrence and are all part of the “eat local” mentality.

- You have to be “plugged into” what’s going on in your market. Being a market manager does not just mean that you show up each market day and sit underneath your market tent & interact with the customers. You should spend time each market day speaking with all your vendors to find out how their season is going, what customers are saying to them about the market, what products that customers are still looking for, what community groups could become involved to help get the word out about the market, etc… Your vendors are your best conduit to this information. You want to take everyone’s comments into consideration when making decisions, but need their input since they are your “on the ground” reps for the market & can give you insights you’d never get otherwise.

- You need to be on-site at the market each market day. This is something I have learned through personal experience. Due to work commitments & some personal life changes I was not able to be on-site at the market this season. It is something I regret because I am hugely invested in the market and its success. I noticed that it was very difficult for the vendors to juggle on-site market operations in terms of events & wireless transactions (ebt/credit/debit) with their day to day operations. Asking vendors to take on that level of responsibility is often not reasonable and also can be a huge time conflict with day to day business operations for them. As market manager you have the responsibility to ensure smooth operation at the market and in-between to take care of any financial issues, event planning and more. If you cannot do this, it is time to think about “hanging up your slippers” and handing the torch to someone else.

I would love to hear your reactions on day to day operations of your market.

One vendor called me last month and asked if a certain vendor had a nursery license since she has selling tomato transplants. (I am not always onsite at the market). He said he would, “say something to her if I wanted him to”.  I asked him to wait so I could do some investigating. I spoke with the vendor in question and she did not have the permit and could not afford to get it. So I asked her to not bring those products to market anymore. She felt as though she had been “tattled on” and decided not to come back to market for the season. This was her choice, but it was handled by the manager and not by a particular vendor which could create a feeling of persecution.

This was the opposite of what happened a few weeks later. One meat vendor saw a customer walking through the market with a piece of meat labeled “not for resale” which meant it could not be sold at the market. Instead of speaking to the manager or simply speaking to the vendor to see if it was a misunderstanding, the entire market was involved in knowing that, “there was a rule violator in the market”, and then had one of the vendors go and be the “rule enforcer”. If they had waited and spoken with their manager, it could have stayed with someone who had no invested interest in the market other than making sure it was successful. Instead it became what could be perceived as a lynch mob.

What can be learned from this? Impress upon your vendors that you should be the one to hear all the issues and do the investigating of potential problems. They should trust that you have all their best interests in mind but that sometimes self-policing is not the way to have a market which also functions as a community.

First I will address social media. This is a great tool to connect with young adults and professionals who have a keen interest in the “know your farmer” issue. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Social media works best when there are constant updates and involvement. Do I honestly have time to be posting about our vendors, events and how the farmers’ market went each week? Probably not, but that is what keeps people coming back. This also involves constant recruitment to your site (whether it is a group or fan page, or a twitter stream). Our market started our facebook group last year and now has more than 250 members. And luckily our vendors have started posting to connect with their customers. This is a great outlet for them and helps them guide people to their own individual websites and also gives them a way to take pre-orders. This can be great if you have the time and your vendors are also somewhat tech savvy.

What about advertising? Advertising works best when it is constant. And that requires,  usually, a pretty hefty marketing budget for the market. So how do you get around this? And who are your customers or who do you want to reach? We have utilized free press releases in the local papers and local listserves to mainly drive traffic to the market. Also, knowing that we want to encourage access to healthy food for everyone, we work with those agencies who work with those on food stamps to help make them aware of how they can use their EBT and farmers’ market nutrition program checks at our farmers’ market. And normally, and for most markets, this is the extent of their advertising due to budgetary constraints. For more information on how to get an EBT machine for your farmers’ market, contact the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY. Our market is also located on a bus line, so this year we will be placing a poster in the bus which will stay all season to encourage people to ride the bus to the farmers’ market and then spend the day in the park.

If your market is operated in partnership with an organization or agency and is located on their premises, work with them to create a flier/poster that can be made available to their employees and those they work with. The worst thing in the world is for the private organization which is the location for the market to not support it. There is another blog on community relations which I urge you to visit to find more ideas for how to partner with local organizations. Or maybe you can create a newsletter or work with the vendors to create recipes to give out to customers. All of these things will make the market seem more interesting and make people want to visit.

I hope these have given you some ideas on how you can drive  farmers’ market traffic and keeping your vendors happy.

Take the Ithaca Farmers’ Market for an example. This market is a co-operative and thus has a very formalized structure for how decisions are made and how the market is governed. This can be very helpful is ensuring that the market vendors have commitment to the market since they are paying a membership fee to be a part of the cooperative and then a seasonal fee to sell at the market. But when decisions are made…it is made by all the members. And when was the last time you tried to get 100+ people to agree on anything? Other markets, like the GreenMarkets in New York City, are run by  one entity who trains the market managers and deals with all the vendor recruitment. This can be great because one entity is making the decisions but who is answerable to whom?

I have seen this recently in my farmers’ market. This may be due to the fact that I will not be on-site for much of the market this season, or just because there will always be a few who want to see how far they can bend the rules. What I have learned is that your best weapon against this is the other vendors. A good market does not want to see dissension or customer confusion because not everyone is following the same rules. Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing..and in this case…just the right solution.

In New York State, participation in the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program requires rules & regulations for market operation. This is an important reason for rules to operate your market, but not the most important. Without rules, vendors will have no frame of reference for what is acceptable behavior at the market.  Rules govern everything from when set-up can start to what types of products can be sold at the market to the management structure of the market and how decisions are made.

Clear rules are imperitive to smooth operation of your farmers’ market. While there are no “clear and fast” rules on how to fashion your market rules, just try and answer the questions below and it will give you a good start.

- When does your market operate (season, days of the week, time of day)?

- When can sales start?

- When can vendors set up & do they have to stay until the end of market day?

- Where can your products come from which are sold at the market? (within a certain radius, from certain states, should crafts be homemade-how will you judge this, etc…)

- How does reimbursement happen for vendors?

- How are decisions made at the market?

- What is the role of the manager at the market?

- Does your market have committees (friends of the market, fundraising, marketing/pr, community events, etc…)

I hope this discussion has helped you understand the importance of market rules and puts you well on your way to creating or updating your market’s rules.

This blog is hosted by the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY and in this blog we will address some of the day to day duties of farmers’ market managers. As the moderator of this blog I will post on a monthly basis and welcome any input, comments or questions to what I post. I promise I will answer any posts within 48 hours.

According to the Farmers’ Market Coalition there are eight skills/qualifications which an effective farmers’ market manager should possess:

• Effective problem-solving
• Creative thinking
• Self-motivation
• Organizational skills
• Communication skills
• Marketing skills
• Financial skills
• Passion and dedication to the community

Each month I will focus on each of these skills as they become relevant throughout the market season. Since this is February and most markets are still in the planning stages for their season we will talk about organizational skills. As market managers our peer group is often transient due to the volunteer nature of farmers’ market managers in general. Thus these blogs sponsored by the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY will be extremely important in acting as a conduit of information to keep us up to date on the industry and best practices.

Being highly organized is integrally connected to being a great market manager, in my opinion, since each vendor relies on the manager to ensure the market as a whole operates smoothly during the season and all the groundwork is laid up to that opening date. Depending on where your farmers’ market is located there are various programs which require yearly enrollment. As a farmers’ market manager in upstate New York, it is about this time of year that I start working on the paperwork for the Farmers Market Nutrition Program through NYS Department of Agriculture & Markets and the EBT program through the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY. Each of these programs require paperwork to be filled out by both the manager and participating vendors. These programs taken together increase access to my farmers’ market for those on food stamp benefits and those who benefit from the WIC program. These are a great boon to my market, especially the produce vendors and I highly suggest your market enroll in these programs if they haven’t already. I have also submitted for a resolution from our county legislature so we can use the space within the county park where the market operates.  I have also renewed my insurance policy for the market, as required by our sponsor, Brooome County.  All of these taken together mean that being able to plan ahead is important.

This is also the time of year for a refresher on requirements for certain products. There are constantly changes with regards to meat & poultry. In NYS you can check with either the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY, or the Cornell University Small Farms Program Livestock Processing Work Team for the most up to date information. The Farmers’ Market Federation of NY also offers a great primer for managers detailing which permits are required for each commodity, from flowers to baked goods, from dairy products to fresh produce.

Being organized means being able to plan ahead. I will soon start to schedule media/pr and special events for the farmers’ market. Operating on a small budget means that I look for all the freebies as I can get. These might include press releases, psa’s (public service announcements), newsletters for schools, hospitals or service clubs; or use of electronic media such as local listserves, or starting a page on Facebook. Press releases are very helpful since newspapers always have space they need to fill, and if your market has a non-profit sponsor they can post these for free. Electronic media has become the up and coming way to communicate with customers and interested parties about what is going on at your market. This is the perfect time to start a Facebook page for your farmers’ market. You can invite customers and also your farmers. Farmers can then inform customers what will be in season each week at the market. You can use an application to invite customers to market each week or any special events happening.  If you choose to go this route, remember that you want to be updating this page on a regular basis and keep encouraging people to join your group so you can have the greatest reach with information. Whatever path you choose, getting out information early regarding when your season will start and what types of products will be there will help to whet the appetite of your customers and get them excited.

I will address event planning next month, but let me just say that event planning could be someone’s full-time job and is just one tool in the arsenal of a farmers’ market manager.

Laura Biasillo is the author of this blog on Market Operations. She is the Agricultural Economic Development Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County, located in Binghamton, NY. She has helped start six farmers’ markets in the past 3.5 years and provides technical assistance to nine farmers’ markets in the county. She also operated a farmers’ market in a county park for 2.5 years which grew to 28 vendors after two full seasons. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Farmers’ Market Federation of NY and is a member of class 13 of the LEAD NY program.