The pandemic brought about a surge of change, leaving farmers and farmers markets alike scrambling to adjust. Even the tiniest of discrepancies in influencing factors, such as demand, can cause a number of challenges for these businesses. Just as variations in the weather can be detrimental to a crop, variations in demand can be detrimental to a business.
The Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, located just north of Arizona State University’s downtown campus, is in the heart of the city and thrives off of its vendors, its customers, families and tourists. Every Saturday, the market offers a unique experience with its locally grown produce and handmade products for sale.
The foundation of these markets- farmers and artisans- have been forced to adapt to fluctuations in areas of consumer demand, financial support and awareness which has caused instability in business. While more and more customers are returning to the market, vendors are still having difficulties recovering from this past year’s losses.
The executive director of Media Inquiries for the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, Sara Matlin, said that the nonprofit and its vendors were faced with all sorts of new challenges at the beginning of the pandemic, and as a result, difficult decisions had to be made to keep the business in operation.
“We had to consider our community and how we could continue to provide that vital platform for businesses and for our farmers,” Matlin said. “At the same time, [we were] making sure that our customers, vendors and everybody else were as safe as possible.”
Because the market’s goal is to provide food access for the community, Matlin said that they had to reduce the number of vendors that were not grocery or food related. She said that after focusing on food, they worked with incorporating non-food related vendors who needed the platform and business that the market provided.
Celia Peterson, owner of the Chile Acres Farm and vendor in the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, said that the loss of both vendors and customers put a strain on business operations and finances. Because of this strain, she said that she was unable to pay her workers and suffered even further from an impossible workload.
“Our customers were frightened, so a lot of our regulars weren’t coming out,” Peterson said. “On top of that, a lot of what we get in foot traffic relied on sporting events, the whole downtown area vibe with bars, restaurants, hotels and snowbirds. We lost all of that.”
Peterson said that because the market is one of her only sources of income, the lack of foot traffic and profit left her with no option but to sell off her animals, including some of the sheep she relied on for wool. For the remaining animals that she didn’t have the funds to buy feed for, she resorted to visiting food banks for unwanted produce.
The farmers market is a substantial source of income to many of its vendors, and due to this, there was a growing trend of similar challenges that farmers state-wide had to confront.
Hussein Al Hamka, vendor at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market and Lead Farmer at the Spaces of Opportunity Garden, a community garden space in South Phoenix which gives local residents plots to grow healthy food, said that the absence of his workers during the pandemic also left him taking on a mass majority of the daily work that needed to be done.
“I never stayed home a day. Every day I am here,” Al Hamka said. “You have to take care of the farm every day, unlike some of the other jobs.”
Al Hamka said that because each farmer at the Spaces of Opportunity Garden had their own designated section to work on, acres of land and produce were left uncared for. This loss of produce, in addition to decreased market sales, hindered the farm’s profit and left them unable to buy the tools, machines and building supplies that they needed.
Despite the recent increase in foot traffic at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, individual farmers are still making up for their lost profits during the pandemic. Farmers and farmers markets alike said that they rely on support from their community and individuals who shop locally to operate their businesses.
Contact the reporter at mjmoor16@asu.edu.
