{"id":4684,"date":"2017-03-10T09:49:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4684"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:24:19","slug":"maine-markets-sprouting-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/03\/10\/maine-markets-sprouting-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine Markets Sprouting Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cYou walk though and you hear English, French, German, Old German\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just the food that keeps Kim-Anne Perkins coming back to the Presque Isle Farmers\u2019 Market.\u00a0 It\u2019s the sense of a community gathering place.\u00a0 \u201cMaine is known to be particularly white,\u201d she explained.\u00a0 \u201cGoing there lets you see the real cultural diversity, that\u2019s not reflected in skin color.\u201d\u00a0 Last summer, she added to that diversity when she brought some Chinese students along.\u00a0 She also recalls an Amish meeting with 15 to 20 carriages lined up, as distant relations came in for what may have been a marriage or reunion.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s another piece of texture in what we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmers\u2019 markets were once a vibrant part of cities and towns across the nation and a large part of the economy, and they\u2019re becoming so again.\u00a0 The local food movement has swept across the country and state, tightening the connection between farm and table and other connections as well.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s really developed and become a gathering for like-minded folk, where new people can come as well,\u201d Perkins said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s really about seeing the advantage rather than the disadvantage of rural life.\u201d\u00a0 One of those advantages certainly is the food.\u00a0 In particular, it\u2019s knowing where your food comes from.\u00a0 It\u2019s knowing what your food is and what it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 At a time when many people are finding out yet darker truths behind the supermarkets and Big Ag, the resurgence of farmers\u2019 markets is a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n

No single farmers’ market is going to strike a shopper as a rising economic giant. There are over 8000 of them in the nation, however.\u00a0 In Maine, there are about 115 markets taking place in the summer. In winter, there are 30-35.\u00a0 Last summer, the Maine Federation of Farmers’ Markets collected surveys of market shoppers throughout the state. \u00a0They found that shoppers spend an average of $20 at neighboring businesses when they go to market. \u00a0This is one way the markets directly boost Maine’s local economies.\u00a0 Of course, the money spent at the market also goes straight to the producer and into the local economy.<\/p>\n

Deena Albert Parks is one such producer.\u00a0 Having recently departed UMPI’s athletic training program, Parks is a vendor at both Presque Isle’s and Fort Fairfield’s markets.\u00a0 Parks has been farming pork for 11 years. \u00a0It all started when she and her husband, recently married, found they had wedding money left over and decided to try something new.\u00a0 (\u201cLet\u2019s buy pigs!\u201d \u201cUh\u2026OK.”)<\/p>\n

Now she hopes to expand her business, Chops Ahoy Farm, by introducing value-added products to her organic-fed, free-range pastured pork and organic vegetables.\u00a0 Parks\u2019 future value-added ventures will include home-crafted bagels and pre-made pork rubs for everything from roasts to ribs.<\/p>\n

In addition to Chops Ahoy, Parks is co-manager of the Fort Fairfield Farmers\u2019 Market with Kate Schupbach.\u00a0 This will be the second year for Fort Fairfield’s market. Schupbach also sells pork, along with vegetables and eggs.\u00a0 Shoebox Farm is run by her large family of \u201caccidental homesteaders,\u201d which includes two sets of twins.\u00a0 Does it hurt to have two vendors selling the same products at a small market?\u00a0 \u201cWhile we want greater variety,\u201d Schupbach explained, \u201cwe also don\u2019t want anyone leaving the market without what they came for.\u201d\u00a0 It turns out potential regulars don\u2019t want to feel that they\u2019re rolling dice when they come.\u00a0 So it pays to have a back-up vendor for your client base if you run out.<\/p>\n

Parks sees future farmers’ market success as hinging on education.\u00a0 “People need to know that it’s not more expensive than the grocery store,” Parks says. The exception to this is out-of-season produce that needs to be grown in the greenhouse structure known as a “high tunnel.”\u00a0 But most foods cost roughly the same as their grocery-store counterparts, sometimes less, due to the shipping costs involved in supermarket distribution.\u00a0 In addition to its affordability, food from farmers’ markets gives you more “bang for your buck,” Parks explains.\u00a0 “Nutrients are the fuel for your body. \u00a0In my work with patients and clients to heal or prevent injury, nutrition has always been so involved.”<\/p>\n

On Saturday mornings Parks can be found at the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. Along with Kim-Anne Perkins, many other former colleagues are patrons.\u00a0 “They tend to all arrive at the same time, which is pretty funny,” Parks chuckles.\u00a0 “I don’t think they plan it.”\u00a0 So if you’d like to give Parks a visit and get affordably fueled, you can join UMPI’s current buy-local group with the likes of Kim-Anne Perkins, Kim Sebold, Deborah Hodgkins and Judy Roe.\u00a0 If, however, you don’t get up until noon on Saturdays (at which point Parks will have been up eight hours), perhaps Fort Fairfield’s market, which operates from 2-6 p.m. on Wednesdays, is the one for you.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou walk though and you hear English, French, German, Old German\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just the food that keeps Kim-Anne Perkins coming back to the Presque Isle Farmers\u2019 Market.\u00a0 It\u2019s the sense of a community gathering place.\u00a0 \u201cMaine is known to be particularly white,\u201d she explained.\u00a0 \u201cGoing there lets you see the real cultural diversity, that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8880,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions\/8880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}