In this weeks readings I realized how much farmers markets are important to the community as any other food source. In chapter four they spoke about how farmers markets are overlooked and underrated as to how much they serve the community of low income people but they are a good step towards food security and farm security. In this chapter they speak on how there are different types of farmers markets that serve different demogrpahics and that was something I never thought of, how the markets could be different depending on where they are located in towns. Some markets were shown to be co-opted by tourism and have changed their system to fit the tourist needs instead of their own community around them. Another problem in this chapter was that the hours/days that the farmers markets are open and running compared to say Whole Foods, its more convenient to go to Whole Foods for something when you need it rather than waiting for the farmers market to come to town.
In the other weeks reading chapter 7 focuses on Women farmers in Hawaii. This chapter shows us the challenges that women in the agriculture field face during farming. They state that “women run farms are smaller in scale, grow more diverse crops, and tend to choose direct marketing outlets such as farmers markets…” this shows how heavily the women farmers rely on the farmers markets and the sole support on their community to support it completely. This chapter looks on the issue of people assuming the women who run these smalls farms married into the farm life but its more likely that they started the farm alone or with a partner. More challenges that women farmers face are for example, the price competition of larger organic farms because they do have more products and also lowering of organic standards.
