Saturday, January 3, 2009

ESPANOLA MARKET MERITS SUPPORT

January 2, 2009, Opinion piece from the Santa Fe New Mexican

The compilers of The 2008 New Mexican Piglet Book are right! The farmers at the Espanola Farmers Market have shockingly exceeded their station and are no longer content to pile their vegetables onto the back of pickup trucks and pull over in a hot parking lot to sell their produce.

Our customers have gotten uppity as well. Many of them are low-income mothers and seniors using WIC coupons to buy home-grown produce. They like the new permanent site that the State Legislature funded with $440,000 "to purchase, design and develop land" for the market. The market even plans to install plumbing and indoor toilets! We give away free books to children each market day and plan to use the lower irrigated fields to teach students how to farm.

What were we thinking!? That the farmers who grow our food could have their own market place in the very same valley where they live and work? Let them eat vegetables!

Sabra Moore
Manager
Espanola Farmers Market

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