YORK, Maine – Dave Tuttle of Riverside Farm in North Berwick said he is incensed at a recent vote of the York Planning Board to limit the Gateway Farmers’ Market to only farmers – and he joins a chorus of local farmers who wholeheartedly agree with him.
“It’s absolutely ludicrous to say that other kinds of vendors hurt farmers. It’s just not true. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’m really adamant about this. It’s just not right to have a few people shut down the market.”
Tuttle and other farmers – including Abe Zacharias from Zach’s Farm and Bill Connolly of Connolly’s Organics in York and Phil Perry of River Lily Farm in Ogunquit – are responding to a recent Planning Board vote to uphold a 2010 town ordinance that limits farmers markets to only farmers.
The issue came before the board after a local restaurant complained to the Code Enforcement office that prepared food sold at the market by local eatery Fat Tomato Grill was taking away from the restaurant’s business. In a 4-1 vote, the board voted to uphold the ordinance which defines a farmer’s market as “an open air market where farmers sell produce and food they raise or create to the general public.”
At the meeting, board member Al Cotton took umbrage with the fact the current market supports “jewelry makers and…lattes.” But it’s those very vendors, the farmers say, that make the market vibrant and therefore an economic boon to them.
“There’s only so many dollars people are going to spend on a head of lettuce,” said Perry. “If you have 10 farmers all selling lettuce, that’s not going to help any one of us.”
“Farming is difficult enough. It’s a hard way to make a living,” said Connolly. “All the ancillary vendors are key to having enough variety to make things go.”
The Gateway Farmers’ Market is not dissimilar to most markets in Maine, said Leigh Hallett, executive director of the Maine Federation of Farmers’ Markets. Except for markets in Portland and Augusta, just about all markets offer a “diversity of vendors” like in York.
State law is silent on non-farmer vendors at markets. It stipulates that at least 75 percent of a farmer’s produce must be grown by him or her; 25 percent of that person’s products may come from another farmer but has to be clearly labeled. But it doesn’t address other vendors.
“Markets do offer a variety of vendors because it keeps them sustainable,” said Hallett. “Mainers want food but they also want convenience. If you can buy fish, local produce and a gift for your mother-in-law, that’s great.”
Abe Zacharias said Zach’s Farm participates in seven markets a week in Maine and New Hampshire, “and every single one of them offers more than farm goods. You’re buying local. If you are getting prepared foods, it may be all the ingredients weren’t produced on a farm, but you’re not getting a Big Mac.
“I can’t even believe this is a conversation,” he said.
Karen Saracina from Something Different Baking in North Berwick buys squash and cucumbers from Zacharias, berries from River Lily Farm to make jams and pies. She said she tries to make her pies, cakes and pickled foods as much as possible from local ingredients – but she doesn’t grow them.
“It’s kind of shocking after all these years that there’s this issue,” she said. “I feel blindsided. I think people who come to the York market really value it, and they say they are as upset as we are.”
Holly Roberts, president of the Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce, which runs the market, said the chamber board has met to discuss the situation and has “come up with a plan of action that they will be executing in the next few weeks.” She said they did not want to discuss their plan in further detail at this time.
The York Gateway Winter Farmers’ market will proceed as scheduled starting in mid-November at the First Parish Church fellowship hall.