Regional Farmers’ Markets Offer Small Growers a Fresh Way to Stay in Business
Thirteen years ago, Scott Beylik persuaded his father and grandfather to try selling produce grown on the family’s Fillmore farm at the downtown Ventura farmers’ market as part of a Future Farmers of America high school experiment.
It wasn’t long before the family dropped its wholesale business and began selling exclusively to farmers’ markets. They now drive to 16 markets a week up and down the Southern California coast selling specialized produce.
“Everything we grow is sold through farmers’ markets,” said Beylik, 32, who runs the family farm and grows 16 acres of tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables hydroponically--a method in which greenhouse plants are grown in water without soil.
Beylik has been joined by a growing number of small farmers in recent years who, unable to compete with large commercial growers, see farmers’ markets as their best chance to keep their businesses alive.
In Ventura County there are seven markets weekly, two each in Ventura and Oxnard, along with markets in Camarillo, Ojai and Thousand Oaks. Los Angeles County hosts more than 50 markets each week.
In the past six years, farmers’ markets have increased nationwide by nearly 60%, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. About 5,000 growers across California sell their produce directly to consumers at markets.
“It’s our only source of income,” said Maryann Carpenter of Coastal Organics in Camarillo. Carpenter’s husband, Paul, farms the family’s 15 acres, and she sells truckloads of produce at markets in Ventura, Hollywood and Santa Monica. “We take a truckload down to the markets and try to take it home empty.”
Coastal Organics grows 70 seasonal items, including heirloom tomatoes, which do not hold up well enough to be sold commercially.
For the small grower, opting for a farmers’ market instead of the wholesale industry cuts down on packing and shipping costs. It also eliminates the middleman, allowing for direct sales to the final customer--and higher profits.
Small farmers in Ventura County say they have found a niche with these community markets by focusing on a variety of specialty produce often difficult to find in nearby grocery stores.
Some markets are open to vendors offering prepared foods and crafts, while others feature only farmers. These markets, often held in church parking lots or in downtown areas, are perhaps best known for the diversity of fresh produce--vine-ripened fruit, vegetables picked the day before and organically grown foods.
“One of the things we specialize in is pretty much trying to grow the perfect tomato for each individual. We grow five to six varieties of tomatoes,” said Beylik, who is experimenting with at least 20 additional varieties in his greenhouses. “It’s difficult to convince a chain store they need to sell five different types of tomatoes.”
Without farmers’ markets, agriculture officials contend small growers, many who have been farming locally for generations, could not remain solvent.
“A number of them travel to markets in Southern California and sell exclusively to farmers’ markets. That’s their sole outlet,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “They wouldn’t exist if they didn’t have that outlet.”
Camarillo farmer Philip McGrath, 49, said his operation depends on selling directly to shoppers. “Farmers’ markets are saving the small farmers,” he said. “The small farmers cannot compete with the big corporations. These people grow thousands of acres and can grow things so much cheaper and ship it off all over the world. The small farmers can’t do that.”
McGrath, whose family has been active in farming in Oxnard and other parts of Ventura County for five generations, said he has been a regular at farmers’ markets for two decades. “I was a conventional farmer all my life up to that point,” he said. “Prior to that, I was farming 300 acres of vegetables three or four crops a year. Now, I just have 35 acres with 200 vegetable crops a year.”
Laura Avery, supervisor of Santa Monica’s Wednesday farmers’ market, said lower overhead and strong demand are helping small farmers remain viable.
On a good day in Santa Monica, Beylik said, he might sell 2,000 pounds of tomatoes. A farmer who would get $2 a pound for tomatoes at a local market might only get 50 cents a pound from a wholesaler, he said.
But officials caution that markets are not always profitable. They say they are the best--and sometimes only--deal around for small growers.
“Some will barely make enough to pay for the gasoline for their truck, but they do not have an alternative for selling the produce from their small farm that would turn out the same return,” said Howard Tumlin, executive director of the Southland Farmers’ Market Assn., which represents 42 markets in Southern California.
Farmers’ markets in Southern California evolved 24 years ago through the efforts of a group involved in the Interface Hunger Coalition, a group sponsored by a nondenominational church that wanted to provide access to quality fresh produce to low-income communities, Tumlin said.
After the first one began in Gardena, such markets soared in popularity in the 1990s as city officials sought out ways to bring communities together.
Today, there are more than 150 certified farmers’ markets in Southern California and more continue to sprout up. State regulations require that all farmers be certified producers in California and grow the produce they sell.
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Ventura County has seven farmers’ markets each week:
* Camarillo: 2220 Ventura Blvd., Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to noon.
* Channel Islands Harbor: 2400 S. Harbor Blvd. at Harbor Landing, Sundays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
* Ojai: 300 E. Matilija St., Sundays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
* Oxnard: corner of 5th and C streets, Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
* Thousand Oaks: Wilbur Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Thursdays, 4 to 7:30 p.m.
* Ventura downtown: Santa Clara and Palm streets, Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to noon.
* Ventura midtown: Pacific View Mall, Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
