Farmers’ Market Fails to Reap Customers

It sounded like a good idea at the time: Open a weekly farmers’ market to draw people into an older part of town that was in steep decline from a lack of business.

As Moorpark city officials and a score of disappointed produce vendors have learned, reviving the downtown area along High Street has not been easy.

Attendance at the Moorpark Certified Farmers’ Market, held Saturdays from 3 to 7 p.m. in the Metrolink parking lot, has dropped off sharply.

Although the market has yet to become a magnet for huge crowds--only 150 people showed up on opening day June 15, about half the number anticipated--the number of shoppers plummeted to about 60 last weekend and vendors are pulling out and moving to greener pastures.

“We’re having a struggle right at this point--no one’s coming,” said Cynthia Korman, who manages the farmers’ market in Moorpark and another in Ojai.

Korman attributes the dearth of customers to the market’s limited visibility--most traffic bypasses the downtown along Los Angeles Avenue, which becomes California 118, as well as other factors, such as the time of year the market was started.

“Spring is best,” Korman said. “In the summer it’s hot and people are on vacation . . . it’s just that people are busy more than anything.”

Don Reynolds, Moorpark’s administrative services manager, said his staff has tried promoting the the market with public service announcements and fliers, but with limited success.

Reynolds said the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce originally proposed a weekly farmers’ market three years ago, but the idea was shelved when businesses on High Street voiced loud opposition, fearing that a market would be unnecessary competition.

When the idea resurfaced in late 1995, however, supporters encountered little opposition because many of the businesses that shot down the earlier proposal had either moved out or gone under, despite the $360,000 the city has spent since 1993 to spruce up High Street’s image.

Reynolds said he believes the city may have overestimated the market’s ability to draw people back into the downtown area.

“It needs to be an enhancement to an area that already attracts people,” he said.

The market’s woes, and those of High Street, may also be due to Moorpark’s rapid evolution from a sleepy farm hamlet to a suburban city much like its larger neighbors Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

“I think what’s happening in Moorpark is we have lots of dual-income families who are very busy,” Reynolds said. “They want to do one-stop shopping as efficiently as possible.”

However, it’s those same dual-income families living in the newer stucco tract homes that surround downtown, that originally lured Korman and local produce merchants to Moorpark.

“The best farmers’ market customers are people with families, since they buy the most produce, and there are a lot of families in Moorpark,” Korman said.

The number of farmers and other vendors showing up to sell their organic fruits and vegetables, baked goods, roasted nuts and other products each week has been slowly dwindling. The decline has fueled a vicious cycle where fewer and fewer customers show up each week because there is little to buy, and additional vendors pull out for lack of business.

“They’re choosing markets where they can sell more product.” Korman said. “It’s like a seesaw, a balancing act.”

Korman said that if a market is supported it will grow through demand, but if attendance remains small--or drops--the farmers will move on. Waiting around for people to show up to purchase their highly perishable goods is a risk few are willing to take.

One possible solution would be to change either the day or the time of the farmers’ market to one more in sync with the schedules of nearby residents and people passing through the area--preferably one that avoided Moorpark’s sultry afternoon sun.

Such changes would be difficult. Reynolds said the market’s site in the Metrolink parking lot is filled with commuters’ cars on weekdays, and Korman said many farmers can’t show up on Saturday mornings because they are at other farmer’s markets.

Korman said she will try to boost the market’s attendance during the next few weeks by bringing in new vendors and possibly changing the event’s atmosphere to resemble more of a street fair, featuring prepared food and music.

Until then, Korman said she believes the situation will grow steadily worse.

“We can’t wait that much longer for the tide to change,” she said. “It hasn’t been a healthy venture--I’m basically working for nothing and I think some of the farmers who are left are probably losing.”