Many of you collegiettes may have seen the tents on Goodell Lawn every Friday this semester, and maybe you’ve even bought something from the vendors there. While it may seem like a new occurrence on the UMass Campus, it’s been a long time in the making. I met with Event Coordinator Cate Elliott to see how the Farmers’ Market came to UMass.
The Pioneer Valley (and Western New England in general) seems to be one of the best places for farmers’ markets in the country, with the Amherst one being a rousing success nearly every Saturday morning and Vermont being the state with the most farmers’ markets per capita in the nation, it seemed only logical for UMass to give the local and student farmers a chance to vend their wares to the public. Starting in 2011, the Student Farming Enterprise and UMass Permaculture held a farmers’ market in the Campus Center, but it didn’t really seem like a true farmers’ market being indoors to Elliott.
When Elliott joined the Student Farming Enterprise in January 2013, she remembered the farmers’ markets that dotted the Vermont landscape when she attended UVM for her freshman year, particularly the one that was held on campus, and wanted to bring that part of the community down to UMass. She also wanted to use the existing farmers’ market, but get it outside and get more vendors involved with it so it would be a fixture on the campus. She said that it was “important that college students have healthy, fresh food, and have something that they can build a community around. Something that they could connect to every week on campus.”
This past winter, Elliott interned at Winter Farmers’ Market in Amherst. She used that experience and her time with the Student Farming Enterprise to being the farmers’ market onto the Goodell Lawn, get more student farmers and vendors involved, and focus on making it mainstay of the fall 2013 UMass Campus. Elliott’s other main goal in revitalizing the UMass Farmers’ Market was to create a hub for sustainability, which would come with expanding the farmers’ market and incorporating more sustainably farmed produce into the lives of all UMass students.
While the Farmers’ Market has certainly become a larger part of students’ lives on the UMass campus, Elliott hopes to expand its reach and liven up the market even further. To do to the former, Elliott and her co-vendors are brainstorming the possibility of doing a spring Farmers’ Market, as this one is only for the fall. Should this come to fruition, we at UMass can enjoy the fruits of the student farmers’ fields year-round. To do the latter, she’s looking at getting entertainment for the farmers’ market, reaching out to music groups on campus, student bands, and solo acts to play some music while vendors sell their produce, both to draw a crowd and give exposure to homegrown talent that may have few other outlets for their music. If you have some time any given Friday, definitely check out the market and support your local farmers.
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