Virginia Farmers Markets Adapt to Pandemic
In partnership with: Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
From new online platforms to contactless payment and pickups, Virginia’s farmers markets found new ways to provide consumers with fresh, local food despite COVID-19 challenges.
“Farmers markets initially started in order to provide nutrient-dense food to communities,” says Kim Hutchinson, executive director of the Virginia Farmers Market Association (VAFMA). While markets had grown into social events with live music, kids’ programming and other worthwhile community engagement, “COVID swung the pendulum back to where it was all about the food,” she says.
Contactless System Success
Early restrictions meant markets could only offer delivery and takeout services. “It was evident that markets had to get online immediately,” Hutchinson says. “Some had successfully been online for years, while others had been on the fence about doing it.” VAFMA served as a clearinghouse of online options; one of those was Lulus Local Food, a cloud-based software platform owned and operated by the nonprofit Virginia Foundation for Agriculture, Innovation and Rural Sustainability. Lulus allows farmers to sell to multiple markets and food hubs using one account, and allows customers to shop multiple farms on one website.
Local Food Hub, a nonprofit that partners with Virginia farmers to increase community access to local food, utilized the Lulus platform to set up two drive-thru farmers markets in Charlottesville. “The traditional farmers markets weren’t running, so we stepped in and created this totally contact-free, preorder-only way for people in the area to buy food from the Virginia producers they know and love,” says Portia Boggs, director of advancement and communications. Prior to COVID-19, Local Food Hub focused on support services, infrastructure and market opportunities to connect people to food grown close to home. “We didn’t do any direct-to-consumer farmers market sales,” Boggs says. “These drive-thru markets are totally new inventions in response to COVID.”
See more: To the Virginia Farmerss Market We Go
Boggs says their drive-thru continues even as traditional farmers markets reopened in early summer. “As long as vendors tell us they are not getting the sales they need in other markets in order to remain viable businesses, we will continue doing these,” she says.
To serve customers utilizing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), markets across the state had to get creative. Hutchinson says of the 270-plus farmers markets in Virginia, approximately 125 had been approved to accept SNAP benefits. She says state and federal agencies worked with the VAFMA to figure out a way for customers to order online and then safely use their electronic benefit transfer cards at pickup points.
Operating Markets Safely
In Danville, the century-old Danville Farmers’ Market opened for the season in May, but it was anything but business as usual. Per statewide restrictions and best practices, vendors were limited to those selling agricultural, horticulture and hygiene products. Market manager Kenny Porzio had 54 vendor spaces pre-COVID-19, but with spacing requirements, one-way foot traffic and other social-distancing measures, vendor spaces were reduced to 18. Even with new spots allocated in the parking lot, Porzio only had room for half the vendors allowed in a typical season.
He says the market’s sales are down about 30%, and some vendors report a 50% decrease in sales. “It’s been a challenging year, but we adapted and offered a service to the community in a safe and viable way. We encountered a lot of optimism and appreciation from the community,” Porzio says.
Hutchinson observed the same optimism from producers and vendors. “Farmers markets are resilient and flexible,” she says. “They bent over backward to do whatever they needed to do to make it happen during COVID and they continue to do so.”