We love the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market that springs up the first Saturday in May in the lot across the street from SHED and adds a Wednesday night event in the lot next door each June.
Established in 1978 as one of only 13 certified farmers’ markets in California, the Healdsburg market is a grandaddy of our local food landscape. Today, there are hundreds of farm markets across the state and nearly every town in Sonoma County has its own certified scene. (Cloverdale has a terrific market, but it’s not certified.) The certification process is intended to ensure that the market vendors are selling produce and wares they themselves grew and created, not just a bunch of bananas picked up at a Big Box store that morning.
Kenny Lowe is the new manager of the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market. A trained chef who once ran a fun series of underground dinners and can also handle software duties, Kenny raises pigs on his Ritual Farm and delivers fresh eggs around town, he says, “just like the milk man used to do.”
One of the challenges of his new job is complying with the separations demanded by AB 1871, a new California law intended to protect consumers from that Big Box banana-style fraud that is generally seen with dismay by market managers in our area, where fraud is rarely an issue and customers are savvy enough to know that our trees don’t grow bananas.
Dictating that agricultural products be sold separately from prepared items that are defined as “value-added products,” AB 1871 has unfortunately driven the popular Jimtown Store stand from the market this year and means that such local ag icons as Lou Preston can no longer sell his famous bread.
“And Lou grows the grain for his bread,” Kenny exhales in frustration. Lou also mills the flour and then bakes his loaves at his farm. But alas. You won’t see many honey sticks or beeswax candles on vendor tables in coming months, nor will olive oil and goat milk soaps remain, as all of those items transform an agricultural product either through packaging or method and, per the new law, can no longer be vended with the honey, oil, and milk that wrought them.
What’s done is done. Kenny would rather look to the future, and plans for growing the educational slate and affordability index of his markets. Worry not, the great zucchini races that mark late summer will remain.
“We’re not going to change old traditions,” Kenny says, “but we are going to ramp up things for kids and work on education. This will be a slow process that’s rolled out because I’m still trying to learn how to run a farmers’ market. But you’ll see more nutrition talks and chef talks, we want to introduce new produce to customers and educate them on how to cook it.”
Kenny is also working to find ways to encourage more Latino families to make his markets part of their weekly round and to increase matching EBT funds, a terrific and sometimes underutilized option that allows a customer with $20 in EBT monies to enjoy $40 worth of buying power.
“Good food is expensive,” Kenny says. “This will help the dollar go farther.”
Learn more about the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market, meet the vendors, and take an insider’s tour of SHED on the first Saturday of each month, beginning in June, when we launch a fun series of luncheons focused on local purveyors. We’ll make sure you meet Kenny.