Journal
RENEWABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS
Volume 22, Issue 1, Pages 54-66Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S1742170507001597
Keywords
farmers' markets; local; marketing; open space; farm viability; embeddedness; cluster analysis
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Consumers interact with each other and vendors on a social level at farmers' markets. Some consumer social interactions, such as enjoying the market, talking with farmers about seasonal products and making a trip to the market a family event, are significant and positive influences on spending at farmers' markets as identified through a survey of 216 shoppers at eight farmers' markets in Maine. Vendors at these markets were also surveyed, with 65 of the 81 vendors being farmers. Through direct farmer/consumer relations, farmers indicated a willingness to reduce chemical inputs to meet customer demands, suggesting that customer interaction has the potential to affect environmental quality. By examining the linkages between producers and consumers at a direct market-often embedded with a sense of local identity-there is the potential to better understand social interactions that can support the economic and environmental sustainability of local agriculture.
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