(Update, 4/24: The Market board has apparently reversed itself and reinstated Pete’s Greens “with the status of a new vendor.” Thanks to Morgan Brown, sharp-eyed observer of all things Montpelier, for spotting the news and reporting it in the Comments. I’m not changing the text of my diary, because (a) I don’t like to do that and (b) I think it’s still a worthwhile story.)
A bit of trouble has broken out at one of the happiest places in central Vermont: the Capital City Farmers Market in Montpelier. At issue is the membership of Pete’s Greens, the groundbreaking farm enterprise headed by Pete Johnson.
It came to my attention at the April 7 Winter Market. Standing outside were two men holding handmade signs and clipboards; they were collecting petition signatures to have Pete’s Greens restored to the Farmers Market. Inside the hall, there were conversations about the banishment of Pete’s for failure to adhere to the Market’s rules.
This was rather a shock. Pete’s is one of the Market’s mainstays, it has been for years, and as an enthusiastic Market customer, I believe that his absence would make the Market a less desirable place to shop.
It turned out that the Market’s board had made the decision sometime over the winter. Pete wasn’t a regular vendor at the Winter Market, so nobody noticed. The Board sent out an item about the decision in a recent e-newsletter, to wit:
The Capital City Farmers Market prides itself on being a producer only market, this means that the person who makes or grows the product is present at the market interacting with the customers. The market membership votes on rules that all our vendors must follow to participate in the market. A key rule is for vendors to attend and sell at the market (for at least half of the markets they attend). This key rule is critical to the character of our market and ensures the connection between farmers/vendors and our market’s customers.
When the outdoor market starts in May you may notice Pete’s Greens is not the first vendor at the market’s State Street entrance. After being given ample notice and continuing to neglect his attendance requirement, the five member board has (after much deliberation and consideration) decided to replace Pete’s Greens with two new farmers.
We wish him well in all his future endeavors.
It seemed rather harsh, and raised a philosophical question: Is this a farmers market, or is it a farmers market? In other words, is the market operated with the customers foremost in mind, or the vendors? This decision appeared to indicate the latter.
I can see the value in having the vendor attend in person. But I enjoyed such a connection with Pete (when he was there) and his handful of employees (when he wasn’t). I certainly didn’t feel like there was less of a connection when Pete wasn’t there in person.
The Market does have rules, and they exist for a reason. However, Pete’s is in a category of its own: it’s a business, surely, but it’s a very small business with a mission of promoting local agriculture and localvorism. Pete has enjoyed a measure of success by being creative in developing his business; is he now being punished for his success?
I have heard at least one vendor complaining about the size and scope of Pete’s operation, and even grousing about the community support Pete received in the aftermath of the January 2011 fire that destroyed much of his operation. Which sounded awfully damn churlish to me, not to mention beside the point: it has nothing to do with whether Pete violated Market rules or not.
It has more to do with an attitude I find unpleasantly Pharisaical: an excessive emphasis on purity, self-defined. Pete is too big to be pure; he’s not a local farmer any more. To which I say, Bullshit. Pete is an entrepreneur in the best possible sense, a leader in developing new markets for local food and showing the way for other farmers to increase the profitability of their operations. Pete is not the enemy, folks. He should not be treated like one.
To date, the only media reporting on this story was in last week’s issue of the Montpelier Bridge. (Available online only in .pdf form.) Its report indicated a pretty wide gap between the two sides’ accounts. The Market board, as stated above, says it gave “ample notice” to Pete. His version is very different:
Johnson himself maintains that he has not violated any market rules, because he attended 12 of 23 markets last summer, despite the fact that he was in the middle of rebuilding part of his farm, which was devastated in a fire last January. He said he has written records of attendance for every market.
…”Throughout last summer’s market, for the early part of the season I was not going to many markets because we were getting the farm rebuilt… I had some communication with the market manager about it and she suggested I ask the board for special exemption. I expected it to be denied, and it was… so far latter half of the market season… I went to12 of the 23 summer markets. Nobody asked me if I went to enough. I thought the market was tracking it… I thought it was all set.”
According to the Bridge story, there was to have been a meeting between Pete and the Market board last Wednesday April 18. No word has been forthcoming, although the Market manager now says that the board will meet this week and may have an announcement afterwards. As of right now, Pete’s Greens is absent from the list of vendors on the Market’s website.
I suspect that the board has been on the receiving end of a great deal of displeasure from market customers. The Capital City Farmers Market has rarely, if ever, been a source of controversy, and I doubt that the board was prepared for the consequences of its decision.
Especially if it turned out they were wrong about Pete’s attendance. That’d be embarrassing, no?
(Addendum 4/24: I can think of at least one other Market vendor in Pete’s class — a one-family operation that’s become a small business. And I rarely see the head of that business in attendance at the Market. I wonder how evenly this particular rule is applied.)
via their Facebook page (here):
“Pete’s is in a category of its own”
No.
Not in terms of promoting local agriculture and localvorism, and definitely not in terms of following the rules. The rules of the Capitol City Farmers Market run 8 pages, and I don’t see any fluff in there. Pete Johnson must have read them when he signed up, including this part:
“Having the producers of the products sold at the
market present on a weekly basis is important to
the character of the Capital City Farmers
Market. The vendor/ producer is defined as a
person or persons with an ownership interest in
the business and direct involvement in the daily
operations of said business. You, as the producer
of the products, must attend and vend at the
market. Substitutes (for selling your products)
are allowed, up to 50% of the markets you
attend.”
I see people like Alan LePage and Joe Buley there every time. They are farmers; I’m sure they have other things to do. But that is actually irrelevant.
If Pete Johnson was there 12/23 of the time then of course they should reinstate him. If he wasn’t, then he should thank them for bending the rules for him. If some other vendor isn’t making it often enough, that vendor should be ousted. Or else a majority of the members should agree to change that rule.
I have noticed that many people have an inconsistent relationship to rules and laws. When they or their favorites get on the wrong side of the law, they want an exception. When somebody else breaks a rule, let the hammer come down. So it goes, from absent vendors to national political figures.
Twice the proposal to apply the same rules to Pete’s Greens that apply to the other vendors is characterized as harsh, ostensibly because Pete’s Is Different, “in a category of its own.”
Yes, it is.
Pete’s a great guy and the Greens a fabulous enterprise, but by no stretch of the imagination is it a “very small business”. That’s what the Market is designed to promote and serve: very small businesses i.e. family farms. Pete’s Greens is definitely not in that category and receiving special dispensation, not in spite of being a huge market farm but because of it, understandably frustrates actual direct-to-market small farmers. The philosophical dilemma is not between “farmers” and “market”, the entity is a “farmers’ market”. Notice where the apostrophe sits. It’s of, by and about farmers (plural) selling what they grew to the people who will eat it. Pete’s is on an entirely different scale and the very fact he has employees and only shows up to (barely, if even) fulfill statutory requirements demonstrates that. Does that mean he should have rules written to suit?
No, it doesn’t.
I’m not expressing an opinion on whether or not Pete’s should be in the market. From this remove it seems the board did exactly right. However, I’d like to ask what became of the “two new farmers” slated to take the slot vacated. I’d like to wonder aloud if anyone else whose barn burned was buried in truckloads of cash and sympathy. I’d like to wonder aloud how many farmers at the market would raise their income 10% if Pete stayed away, sacrificing 0.0001% of his. Pete’s Greens is not Amazon, he’s unqualifiedly a positive influence on the region, but his presence at the farmers’ market is not obviously in keeping with its spirit and purpose, and questioning his suitability and conformance to standards is by no stretch of the imagination “harsh”. (Well, I guess that depends on the inventiveness of your imagination. My reading says it was the opposite.) Genuine small farmers are also great people with a positive influence on the region, and they need farmers’ markets to survive. Pete’s does not. If the point of the market is to connect as many consumers with as many farmers as possible, helping everybody get what they need in order to get by, Pete’s may well be detracting from that, not adding to it.
Please don’t lecture about free markets and socialism. I’ve heard it and don’t buy it. Free people create free markets, not the other way around. There’s no inherent right to special consideration or suspension of rules (what was that cute phrase? “revisit the rules”, meaning rewrite to fit Pete’s schedule) or even a level playing field because of size. Vendors are there by invitation, not by divine right, and an attempt to acquire peerage through petition, or purple editorialization, is knocking on a dark door. Read carefully: it’s the Farmers’ Market.
And, incidentally, calling someone a fussy bureaucrat, or perhaps you meant xenophobic fascist, for advocating that all rules apply to all players is intellectually indefensible and goddamn stupid.
The Farmers’ Market is a private organization and all the members know what the rules are when they join, right?
I figure they get to decide whom to admit as a member and how to enforce their rules. If he violated the rules why does he have a legitimate complaint?