Web Letters: Civic Agriculture = Sane Housing

What an interesting article! Farmer's markets are indeed gaining popularity on the East Coast, that's for sure.

It s also interesting that in the US a market selling local produce has to be called a "farmer's market," whereas in more "traditional" European societies for example, it is just a "market" (marché in France, mercado in Spain etc.). The lack of epithet suggests the idea of the natural, original or quintessential market; the predecessor of sorts of all other trade markets. After all, markets in the US aren't innately traditional or part of everyday life anymore. Rather, they have have become an anomaly, supplanted by supermarkets and shopping complexes, which have in turn become one of our trademarks and exports.

But the farmer's market also bears American trademarks. First, the idea of the farmer ties into the romanticized ideals of the countryside and heartiness that infuse so much of US culture and policy (dreams of white picket fences, golf, Laura Ashley, rooftop gardens, quaintness, cracker barrel, a simpler life and so on). Second, the "farmer" in farmer's market is a branding mechanism, connoting the positive ideals we associate with farm living, and ignoring the harsher realities of the challenges that have faced and continue to face real farmers everyday. As such, the combination of romanticizing and branding the "market" makes the "farmer's market" particularly American.

Basically I think the farmer's market is a manifestation of modern American society's longing for more traditional roots, and--tangentially--the increasing concerns of the upper and middle class about health.

Food for thought.

Sabine Ronc

Paris , France