NEWS FROM MARIQUITA: A CSA Journal

Dangling crystals, bad poetry and political theater...
The social challenges of running a farmers' market stall
The protestors and cranks at an urban farmers' market thrust Andy inot delicate merchandizing dilemmas and make him eager to return to the sweet country life.

By Andy Griffin

Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes are full-flavored but fairly squishy. They would be safe enough to throw at even a politician, but being the farmer/seller in that politician’s city might not be good for staying in business.

I had an immense pile of tomatoes for sale nearby. A number of protestors attracted by all the dignitaries but denied access to the breakfast approached my market stall. "Do you have any organic sauce tomatoes," an activist inquired, "...cheap ones, to throw at Da Mayor?"

This remains one of the very few times I have ever refused a sale.

When taking people's money I try to be as democratic as possible. But as much as I hunger for a big wad of dollars in my hand I know that I'm only allowed to sell my produce in town by the grace and good humor of the authorities. It seemed like bad karma to involve myself in the tangled mystery of San Francisco's politics by becoming the supplier of ripe tomatoes to anarchists of dubious social standing.

In San Francisco, farmers markets have become one of the few avenues by which the public can experience a connection, however vicarious or ephemeral, with the production of their food. True, shoppers here are unlikely to encounter a scene as visceral as that of a steer, skinned and dismembered, displayed for sale on the street piled upon its own hide as I saw in the Tarija, Bolivia, farmers market -- but they can talk to a farmer. For farmers the market, besides being a welcome source of income, is also a place to socialize and see how the other 98 percent lives.

The market is often the high point of my week. But constant exposure to the unfiltered public has its downside. Every village has its idiot but in my fifteen years of selling in open air markets across central California it seems as though my own community of Santa Cruz is especially blessed. When I think back on the very few customers I have ever"fired," almost all of them were at the Santa Cruz market.

There was the fellow who always wanted to pay for his purchase with a spontaneous poem. I like to support poetry so one day I asked him for a few lines so I could judge their value. It turned out he specialized in violent misogynistic rants. But I can get that for free off a public bathroom wall any day, so no deal.

Then there was the guy with the crystal. He'd show up every week dangling a quartz crystal from a fishing line over the produce display in a trance "reading" the vegetables for positive energy before making a purchase. “Bad energy,” he’d say, pointing to one cabbage. “Good energy,” he’d murmur, indicating another. When he tried to get a read on my head I invited him to take his shopping elsewhere.

Finally there was the time the market was threatened by protesters protesting the threat of nuclear holocaust. In fairness to Santa Cruz, the folks responsible for this stunt were not local talent but had been bussed in by the organization Food Not Bombs from Berkeley.

For a public consciousness-raising demonstration these anti-nuclear war protesters came to the market en masse then "fell down dead" to dramatize nuclear apocalypse. The prostrate bodies of the “victims” made shopping an obstacle course. This theater of the absurd didn't raise any eyebrows in Santa Cruz, but eventually the growers asked the manager for help to get the protesters removed so sales could resume. When she asked them to please exercise their first amendment rights by lying dead at the edge of the parking lot so nobody would trip, they jumped up and started yelling "fascist!"

On days like this I’m reminded that one of the profits I take home from the farmers market is a renewed appreciation for my quiet, uneventful life in the country.