Do you know where your food comes from?

Gettysburg College Environmental Journalism students visited Adams County Farmers Market (ACFM) on September 11^th to learn about how benifical farmers markets are.

By: Julia Phillips

Where are all these new stores coming from? Vendors are using the farmers market in Gettysburg, PA to open their own stores. The residents here come to get local food, leading to exposure for the vendors. I was able to visit the farmers market on September 11th to learn more.

The residents of Gettysburg and the neighboring areas come to the Adams County Farmers Market (ACFM) from May to October. Here they find seasonal food and plants and the vendors are able to get their name out there. I was able to speak with a vendor while at the market who said, “Coming to this farmers market does make a profit for us and it also leads to us getting more exposure off season”. The market doesn’t just benefit the shoppers, it helps the vendors gain traction.

People come to Gettysburg for two reasons: tourism and agriculture. Here at the ACFM Reza Djalal, the market manager, is trying to make both happen. He wants the market to be a bigger name in Gettysburg. The ACFM started off small and has been able to grow extraordinary.

In Phillip Warsaw’s article on The Economic, Social, and Environmental Impacts of Farmers Markets: Recent Evidence from the US he states, “farmers market sales consisted of 23% of direct-to-consumer farm sales, totaling $711 million in revenue”. Farmers markets can be extremely successful if done right.

Here at Gettysburg, the ACFM has been growing every single year. During the pandemic, the market was still growing. In fact, 2020 was their best year yet with a 41% increase. Djalal said “new vendors use the market to launch their store, or they want to start a new business” and a business was just able to do this fall 2020 because of how successful the ACFM has become.

The flower shop Locaflora came to the farmers market every year and they had many customers. The customers liked how the flowers were from around the area and continued to shop there. On the Locaflora website it says, “Although we are certain that the global floral industry plays an important role in modern economy, it does so at extreme environmental cost, deep social injustice, *and* the death of many US flower farms since the 1970’s. Out of a love for both people and planet, we’ve chosen to return to the lost tradition of sourcing flowers locally” sourcing the flowers locally is great for the environment and having the customers aware of seasonality. 

Djalal stated “shoppers have lost touched with seasonality”. At grocery stores, shoppers see every food option all year round. In fact, they will get upset if the store doesn’t have what they want. Shopping locally is not only beneficial for the consumers but also the environment. Farmers markets can be local and sustainable incubators for business and a space to address environmental justice.

Across the globe manufactures try to keep up with the demand of food that is out of season where they are sold. Consumers are unaware of how difficult it is to transport items across the country and how harmful it is to the environment. At these farms the food is mass harvest at once regardless of if the food is ripe or not. If it is not ripe, it will be thrown out which contributes to the food waste issue.

 At these farms, animals will be pumped full of chemicals and have a diet that harms them. These farms do not care about how the animals are treated and just want to make a profit.

At local farms, this does not occur because the farmers care more about the products and customer satisfaction. They want the consumer to be healthy and eat farm grazed animals rather than have their animals eat a corn-based diet.

The ACFM offers customers with healthy options that are grown within 80 miles (most are within 20). This brings the shoppers awareness back to what should be sold in the area. These consumers also have noticed their health increase.

Less consumers deal with obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes less often because they are eating locally sourced food with no harmful chemicals to keep the food fresh.

Food shipped across the country are filled with harmful chemicals because they will sit in grocery stores for months. Washing the food when you get home is not enough because they food with be injected with these chemicals.

Overall, eating locally is beneficial for the consumer and the environment. I hope after reading this you will keep in mind shop locally and know where your food comes from.

References

Adams County Farmers Market. Retrieved from https://www.acfarmersmarkets.org/?fbclid=IwAR2eHZtbiONud7nTlg-ADVnx3fSeNSPZeD-H3-W75kLDLQNBbIahkpe5QPM

Locaflora Online Shop. Retrieved from https://locafloradesign.com/

Warsaw P., Archambault S., He A. and Miller S. 2021. The Economic, Social, and  Environmental Impacts of Farmers Markets: Recent Evidence from the US.