This week we're giving the mic to our friends at Texas Farmers' Markets. Before we do, a friendly reminder that the 2020 Tomato Presale is still under way! Order your 'maters here, and pick them up at your favorite market! Also! If you're interested in seeing a virtual tour of JBG, be sure to tune in on Monday, June 1st at 10am! We're teaming up with the markets and Farmer Brenton and showing you what we're growing! Without further adieu, a word from Texas Farmers' Markets:

Johnson’s Backyard Garden has been a keystone farm at Texas Farmers’ Markets at Lakeline and Mueller for 10 years. If you are a JBG devotee you may have visited our markets over the years to pick up your CSA box, or to shop from JBG’s beautiful display of seasonal organic produce. We hope that when you stopped by their booth, you also spent some time perusing the market — maybe you picked up a basket of startlingly sweet Fredericksburg peaches, enjoyed a piping hot cup of locally roasted coffee, bit into a crunchy baguette still warm from the oven, chatted with a cheesemaker over a sample of chevre, or listened to some tunes by the local musicians that performed on our center stage. We pride ourselves on being a pillar of the local sustainable agriculture community and that is reflected in our nonprofit’s policies as a year-round, producer-only market with strict rules around sustainability and the humane treatment of animals.

Photo of our market staff adapting to COVID-19 by Annie Ray. Checkout her Instagram to see beautiful portrait shots of food industry workers, all around town.

As is true for so many these days, our operations have been turned on their head by COVID-19 and our markets look rather different than the festive gathering spot you know and love. From the very beginning of the pandemic, our city government recognized what an important role farmers’ markets play in feeding Austinies and supporting the local economy and we have remained open. But in order for our farmers’ markets to continue to serve our community, we had to enact many changes to keep our staff, market vendors and shoppers safe.

 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, during an average week our two markets hosted over 130 unique local farmers, ranchers, and small business owners, and welcomed over 10,000 shoppers. Since the pandemic hit, we are seeing 70-80 vendors continuing to sell at our markets and around 4,000 customers per weekend. Needless to say, we are open but operating at a much reduced capacity. But we are so thankful for our amazing vendors that are continuing to sell at our markets and provide shoppers with a safe, fresh and healthy supply of local food. And we are so lucky to have so many devoted shoppers who recognize how critical sustainable food is for keeping a population healthy. Now more than ever we are witnessing how vital the ties across the local food movement are for ensuring a resilient community.



 

But while our vendor and shopper counts are low, our staffing and supply costs have gone up. Our markets employ 4 full time staff members that work throughout the week to ensure that our markets run smoothly every weekend, that vendors get the information they need to set up safely, and that shoppers know what to expect when they arrive at our markets. Our core team does everything: from checking health department permits, to crafting market layouts, to running farm inspections, to working with the Sustainable Food Center on food access, to answering social media questions, to running crisis management, and so much more. Prior to the pandemic our core team members already worked from home outside of their time at the market, but the day to day tasks of our team have shifted in many different ways in order to keep things running smoothly during this difficult time.

 

In addition to our core team, our markets employ 15 part time crew who do jobs like set up tents, distribute food stamps, sanitize work stations, haul trash and manage a totally new market setup now that COVID-19 has impacted our community. Our markets would not be running if it were not for their flexibility and bravery to still be working customer-facing positions each and every week. Truly, their jobs have changed in almost every way since the start of the pandemic, and they amazingly rolled with the punches. For example, while our markets used to be a place of free-flowing entry, we now must put caution tape around the perimeter and have very specific designated entrances and exits in order to manage the number of people inside the market, sanitize every person’s hands and check for the required face mask of every person. Just monitoring customer entry takes a lot of market staff!



Our team feels incredibly lucky to have been able to retain all of our staff (and have actually increased our at-market team member presence) and keep going, but staying open also means our supply costs for running the markets have increased. We now need items we never had to account for in the past — for example every month we use four gallons of hand sanitizer ($240), four boxes of gloves ($70) and six rolls of caution tape ($50). But while staff and supply costs have gone up, our market’s revenue has gone down. Many people don’t know that the farmers’ market is a nonprofit organization and our operating budget is generated through weekly booth fees, local business sponsorships and government grants. Our vendors pay on a graduated fee scale, where farmers and ranchers pay the least amount, and as we have seen our weekly vendor numbers cut in half, as well as our sponsorships dry up, our financial picture is less than rosey. That is why, for the first time in our organization’s ten year history, we are asking the public for donations.

 

 

We are asking that if you love the farmers’ market, send us a few dollars and help us fill up our lemonade jug. Whether you have $5 or $500, every amount counts. Have you enjoyed live music at the market? Dropped off compost in our community compost station? Learned how to make sourdough bread or kimchi in a workshop at the Austin Fermentation Festival? Tasted a delicious sample of something seasonal our market chef has cooked up in the demo tent? Made a birdseed ball in the kids area for Earth Day? These are all activities our farmers’ market has provided to the public free of charge over the years, and we hope to be able to run all of these activities again soon. But unless we are able to raise $30,000 by July 30, we may never be able to reinstate some of these programs ever again. Simply put, our organization is struggling to keep our markets open to put food on your plates and we are asking for community support.



 

While we can’t offer physical donation thank you gifts, we want to offer something in return for supporting our markets. That is why this month we are running behind the scenes Instagram Live tours on the farmers’ market Instagram page (@TexasFarmersMarket) with some of your favorite market farmers. Join us for 30-minute tours where we talk shop, play with goats, give home gardening tips and even take audience questions. On June 1 at 10am we will be doing a tour with JBG! Other dates include June 4th at 10am with Belle Vie Farm, June 17th at 10am with Shirttail Creek Farm and June 25th at 10am with B5 Farm. If you can’t catch the live videos, not to worry, they will be posted on the market’s Instagram TV channel. If you don’t have the means to donate but want to support the market, why not share info about the tours and invite others to join us?

During this crisis we have been continuously bowled over by the support our community has shown our markets. Y’all have kept us going through an incredibly difficult time. Thank you for being market shoppers and helping Texas Farmers’ Market continue to run safely! 

Photo of Nora by Riley Blanks via Austion Women. Thank you, Nora, for sharing an insiders look into what it takes to keep our markets running!