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The many facets of CitySeed
The mission of CitySeed is to engage the New Haven community
in growing a sustainable local food system that promotes
community development, economic development and sustainable
agriculture. It was started by a group of neighbors in Wooster
Square as City Farmers’ Market, Wooster Square. CitySeed is a
non-profit organization.
It began, number one, because there wasn’t really a good
farmer’s market in the city that was a producer-only market –
where you could go and know you were buying directly from the
farmer. Number two, specifically in this neighborhood, there was
nowhere to get fresh fruits and vegetables. This is a really
diverse neighborhood with young professionals, elderly Italian
people, and you have public housing. In this really diverse
place there was just nowhere you could go to buy broccoli or
tomatoes or an onion.
So, we saw a need. And there was this park where the Farmers’
Market is located that didn’t have a purpose and was kind of
just here. It seemed that we could take advantage of this green
space, energize it with this community event, this weekly
gathering, and provide local, healthy food to the community.
We began last year [2004] in Wooster Square on July 17th
and it was a really amazing thing: I had to twist farmers’ arms
to get them to come into the city, but once they got here on
opening day … We opened at 10 a.m. and by noon pretty much
everyone was sold out. There were actually farmers who went back
to their farms to get more to sell.
So, it became very clear very quickly that New Haven people
had been waiting for a place where they could buy local healthy
food, where they could interact with farmers, where they could
support local agriculture, where they could buy organic heirloom
tomatoes, and also use their WIC coupons. From the very
beginning, the markets have been WIC certified, so we accept the
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program coupons for nutritionally
at-risk women, infant children and seniors.
It was really important for us to create a farmers’ market
that can attract a wide range of community members. Very soon
into that first season we had other community organizations
approach us and other people who live in the city approach us
and say, “Hey, could you come to our neighborhood?” So, we ended
up working with two community organizations in Fair Haven to
open up a market there. We worked with the downtown
organization to revitalize their downtown farmers’ market. And
then we started a market on the west side of the city in
Edgewood Park, where these four neighborhoods meet, because
there was a community group there that said, “Hey, come to our
neighborhood, too.”
So, as of July 13 [2005], we’ve had four markets running in
four different neighborhoods. And for us, this model of having
neighborhood markets is important because one of the obstacles,
especially for people who are nutritionally at-risk, to buying
local food and buying fresh food is transportation. So, if you
make markets neighborhood-based and put them in enough places,
then you’re really reaching out to people who can just simply
walk to the market. If they don’t have a car, if the bus line
isn’t quite convenient for them, they can literally walk on a
Sunday, go to this beautiful park and buy lovely, local food
that’s really healthy for them. And that’s what we’re hoping to
achieve with these local neighborhood markets.
Farmers love urban markets
The response from farmers has been amazing. Last year, I had
the problem of having to twist arms and make deals to get
farmers to come to the first Farmers’ Market. And now I have to
tell farmers, “I can’t add another farm to that market yet! I’m
starting them all small and I really want to create a good base
of support before we expand it anymore.” In fact, I have farmers
who have already told me, “Once you want to add another farmer
to that market, call me.” What I really think is going on is
that farmers are realizing that direct marketing is a really
smart way to go – that they can interact with the public, be
part of this community event. They can sell their products at
retail prices, which is very different from selling them
wholesale to restaurants, to grocery stores. I think it’s the
interaction with the public and I think it’s the fact that it
makes their farms economically viable.
And suddenly it makes growing specialty crops viable. For
example, we have a farm here that has all these different
varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Going to a farmers’ market and
having people who come back to you week after week to try
another one of your tomatoes makes your operation economically
viable. That’s also what we hope to be doing, promoting farm
viability and increasing farmer income and insuring that.
What we hope is that this farmers’ market and this network of
farmers’ markets will not only support the farmers who come to
the market but also encourage people to consider farming as an
occupation. We need to stem the decline in the number of farms
and encourage people to go into farming.
Food, a democratizing force
What’s amazing about food is that we all must eat. So, I
think food is a democratizing force for sure, especially in a
community setting. And I think that’s one of the amazing things
that happen in a farmers’ market.
So it was very important for CitySeed from the beginning to be
WIC-certified so that the farmers would accept the Farmers’
Market Nutrition Program Coupons, which are specifically for
women, infants, children and seniors who are nutritionally at
risk.
City Farmers’ Market Wooster Square became the first Farmers’
Market in the state to accept EBT cards this June (It’s
basically food stamps on a card.) About maybe seven years ago,
farmers’ markets were able to accept paper food stamps. But
when food stamps got put on an electronic card, many farmers’
markets didn’t have the kind of technology required to use the
card. But, because of new wireless terminal technologies, that’s
now possible.
For us, it’s just critical to make sure that farmers’ market
is a place where every member of the community can shop... It
must be accessible. You must accept WIC. You must accept EBT.
It also must have such a variety of produce that if you want to
come and get a really good deal on a bag of squash, you can do
that. If you want to come and buy really precious salad greens,
you can do that, too. You need to make sure that your offerings
and your price points are variable enough and really run the
gamut
A celebratory relationship with food
People need to be reminded that food can actually taste good.
I think many people have forgotten what a tomato tastes like. If
you go to Stop & Shop in December and buy a tomato and you eat
it, it usually tastes like cardboard. When you come to a
farmers’ market and buy a tomato in season and eat it, it’s a
completely different experience. And I think once you have that
experience, you suddenly start to realize the value of eating
seasonally and of waiting until June for those strawberries
because they taste amazing in June, but they don’t taste nearly
as good when they’ve been sitting on a truck and driven 1,500
miles to get to you. They just don’t taste the same as when
they’ve been picked this morning and traveled only 20 miles to
get to the farmers’ market.
One of the amazing things about a farmers’ market is that it
introduces people to a celebratory relationship with food: All
of these wonderful things can happen if you only would eat
seasonally and eat locally. Once you get someone hooked on
local food, I think they start to conceive of food in a
different way. And I think that many of those people who will
eat the cardboard tomato can be persuaded that there is another
way to think about food. They need experiences like farmers’
markets, like restaurants that source locally, to flip the
switch.
At a farmers’ market there are all of these teachable
moments: By the time a marketgoer has walked the length of
Russo Park and looked at all the vendors, they know that corn is
in season in the middle of July, that plums are in season. That
we’re going to have to wait until next June for strawberries.
And they don’t even realize they just learned a bunch of things.
One of our other strategies is to hand them a market newsletter
that has nutritional information on the back and a recipe of the
week, again promoting this idea that food should be: It should
taste good; it should be nutritious; it is something to be
celebrated and enjoyed.
Community support helped sow CitySeed
In terms of getting CitySeed started, we were very fortunate
that the city and different departments of the city were
forward-thinking enough to realize that a farmers’ market could
revitalize the neighborhood, could address health issues in
terms of increasing access to local healthy food. So we had the
support of the city from the beginning, which is extremely
helpful.
For example, we opened up on July 17th and the
following week I got an e-mail from the head of traffic and
parking, and he says, “Hey, we have this electric trolley that
goes around downtown New Haven. Why don’t we just add a leg so
it comes by the market on Saturdays?” They did this for us for
free, which is amazing. The mayor has been very supportive,
especially as we reach out to other neighborhoods.
I also need to say that Yale University was very supportive.
They have a housing and community development clinic at the law
school law school students who work with community
organizations, non-profits, to help them become incorporated. We
dealt with all of our paperwork with them. I don’t think we
could have done that on our own. I mean, the IRS really needs to
know a farmers' market, which is generating money for farmers
should be considered a non-profit. It was the law school
students who helped convince them that this was not a
money-making machine; this was a non-profit organization about
nutrition, education, community building and a sustainable food
system.
Growing farmers’ markets farther afield
It’s interesting that we had one farmers market in New Haven
last year; now we have four. We have now been approached by
people who live in surrounding towns who say, “We would really
love a farmers market in our town."
I don’t think we’re ready yet to be like France, where they
have these lovely little farmers’ markets in every little town,
because we just don’t have the critical mass of people thinking
about these issues. But I hope that we get there. I think the
dream would be that any different day of the week you could go
to a farmers’ market because every town, essentially, has one.
I think you need the density of a city to make something like
this work. New Haven is a small city, but it’s a city and you
have the population density to support 15 farmers at a farmers’
market. I don’t think you could do that in a suburb of New
Haven. I don’t think you would get the same number of people
coming during that four-hour window during the market.
The farmers who come to market
CitySeed works with 24 different farms and vendors. We even
have a woman who makes goat’s milk soap from the milk of her own
goat, which I think is amazing. We have a few prepared-food
people, as well. We like to support local food entrepreneurs.
Each farmers’ market has a different mix of vendors, and there
are farms at each market that only go to that market. So each
market has its own character.
Working with the farmers has been one of the more enjoyable
aspects of this job. I may live in the city but I get to go
visit farms; I get to meet farmers and spend time on farms. And
I think for farmers, the climate in which they work is
difficult. I think there are developers knocking on their door
saying I’ll give you this money for your farmland. And I think
at farmers’ markets the interaction with the public, the
gratification I think they feel at the end of the day from
people who really appreciate and understand what they are doing,
probably helps keep them going.
I’ve had farmers at this market tell me that what they love
about it is that the customers ask them questions and are
interested in the food. And I’ve also have had customers tell me
the farmers are so knowledgeable and they learn so much from
being at the market. Jim Clinton, our honey guy, will sometimes
bring his bees and do a little demonstration. Everyone here is
willing to talk about what they do and excited to talk about
what they do.
What’s next for CitySeed?
I would say that the big dream of CitySeed would be to develop
a public market downtown; so the goal would be a permanent
building that would have all locally owned, primarily food-based
businesses. It would be a place that would help incubate local
businesses. You know here’s an interesting, let me see if I can
get the statistic right; I don’t have it memorized: If people
would commit just 10 percent of their food budget to local food,
then in a region like New Haven – including the city and the
surrounding towns say about 300,000 people – it would be
something like 40 million extra dollars into the local economy.
So a public market would help community members make that kind
of investment. It would allow them to buy food that hadn’t
traveled as far, was better for them, better tasting. And it
would create a community space for the city.
Our model for New Haven would be the Redding Terminal Market in
Philadelphia. When you walk into Redding Terminal Market, you
get the feeling everyone in Philadelphia is there buying their
food. I can’t think of another gathering place in our culture
that gathers together such a group of people on such a regular
basis, and provides the opportunity for that kind of
interaction. |
