Midtown Farmers Market

If, like me, you’re still mourning the end of the fair’s foods-on-a-stick, I have great news for you. There’s a new portable delicacy in town: Varma lefse, the creation of South Minneapolis’ Nathan Matter and Alyson Sweet. Varma recently starting offering its lefse wraps at the Midtown Farmers Market.

Last week, I attended a Farm Bill listening session held by the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) in Minneapolis. The organization was looking for input about what should be its 2012 Farm Bill policy priorities, but what it got instead was smorgasbord of ideas that would be difficult -- if not impossible -- to put into the Farm Bill as it is now. Because the Farm Bill directly affects the lives and livelihoods of all Americans (and many around the world), there are many stakeholders. But because it is both so broad and so complex, it’s hard to please everyone. It's even harder to get entrenched interests to agree to anything but incremental change.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to help out at the Midtown Farmers Market in Minneapolis, one of the area markets that allows patrons to use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly called Food Stamps) benefits to purchase fresh produce. Seeing firsthand how Farm Bill legislation is put into practice was a great reminder of how something as seemingly arcane as the Farm Bill can actually affect our neighborhoods, and of the kind of improvements we can make in the 2012 Farm Bill.

In 2006, the Midtown Farmers Market became the first Twin Cities market to accept the SNAP/EBT (supplemental nutrition benefit program via electronic benefit transfer) program (more commonly known as food stamps), thus ushering in a new wave of accessibility for more local food lovers. And earlier this summer, they partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota to make local, healthful food more affordable with a program called Market Bucks. The first $5 of EBT dollars used at the market on any given day is matched – with another $5. And that means $5 more local, farm-direct summer goodies to savor. 

Sometimes I forget how cool it is to live in the Twin Cities. Oh, I'm proud of our lakes, trails, trees, farmers, restaurants, and all. But sometimes I take it all for granted, forgetting just how special this place really is. That's why sometimes it fun to get out of here and experience things from someone else's point of view.

Linda Halley and I stand in the middle of a seemingly empty, sunny field under an impossibly clear sky. She bends over and touches her fingertips to the soil, raking them gently over the top, exposing slightly blacker, wetter soil underneath the grayish first layer. "I don't see any – Oh! There's one. Do you see that?" she asks. "That's the beginning of a weed," Halley explains. Now I see it. She's turned up a tiny matchstick of white, barely noticeable, and easily dismissed as a piece of dried grass. It's the sliver of the root or maybe a stem. Weeds: competition for nutrients, water, and sunlight. Weeds: enemy of the crop and therefore enemy of the farmer. As the manager of the Minnesotan organic farm, Gardens of Eagan, Halley can't use herbicides to rid herself of these pesky plants.

This week marks the end of October, the end of Daylight Savings Time, and the end of the season for most of the area’s farmers markets. So get out there and visit your favorites one last time, bid auld lang syne, and promise to greet them next spring when they return.