Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
vorful than those that had been offered before and demonstrated that shoppers were will-
ing to pay for them. But the revolution hardly stopped there.
The changes that these markets introduced also had an effect on the markets them-
selves. What once were simple gatherings that accomplished nothing more than allowing
farmers to sell directly to their customers evolved into something much more vibrant and
complex. Ultimately, the changes altered the way the growers who sold at the markets
farmed, even down to the choices of the crops they grew.
In the Weisers' case, selling directly to consumers is no longer anywhere near their
biggest source of income, but their presence at farmers' markets remains the most import-
ant factor in their success. The market stands give the family the credibility to charge high-
er than commodity prices even for fruits and vegetables they don't sell at the markets. By
growing good food and then getting good prices for it, the Weisers have been able to sup-
port four families and more than a dozen employees on only a little more than a hundred
acres. Still, they are quick to point out that working farmers' markets is only marginally
more profitable than selling to wholesale accounts. They say that their farmers'-market ex-
penses range from 70 to 75 percent, and it takes a heckuva lot of work - certainly more
than loading up the truck and driving to the packing shed.
Using farmers' markets as a springboard to greater things was not the Weisers' intent when
they started. It all developed pretty naturally. The family got into agriculture in 1976,
when the father, Sid, retired from his job as a gang counselor at Garfield High School in
East Los Angeles. Sid had always wanted to farm, so when he learned of a 160-acre apple
orchard for sale, he jumped on it. He soon wished he hadn't. "After about five years, we
nearly went bankrupt," he says. Alex, the son who runs the farming end of the operation
these days, remembers his first experiences trying to sell their apples through the normal
commodity route: "We'd take them to the packing shed, and they'd beat you down for a
buck. We were really passionate about what we were growing, and they thought that was
kind of funny." Every grower who has ever sold at a farmers' market has some version of
the same story. The Weisers started going to the farmers' markets as an experiment to see
if they could earn some quick money to tide them over between commercial sales. The
strategy worked. "Going the regular way, we might not make enough money to cover the
costs of packing and production," Alex remembers. "But I was bringing in cash from the
markets."
Eventually, the Weisers ripped out the apple trees they'd started with (even at farmers'
markets, it's tough to compete with the flood of fruit from the Northwest). Today the
Weisers grow dozens of fruits and vegetables. Melons and potatoes are their specialties,
