Blog entries by Tom Roberts

About Tom Roberts

When I started attending the Brewer Farmers’ Market back in August of 1983, my sole concern was being able to sell the produce my farm was growing at a good price. After attending market for a year or two, I began to realize that how the market was organized had a great impact on my sales. And how the market was organized also influenced how it made decisions about dues, new members, what could be sold at market, and how it promoted itself—and this, too, had an impact on my sales. So I got involved in the market’s steering committee and began to understand how various market members thought the market should operate. Some wanted a market czar, some wanted everyone to be allowed to do their own thing. But everyone seemed to agree that if the market as a whole did well, then so did they.

Intro to Farmers’ Market By-Laws Template

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View By-Laws Template (web page) View By-Laws Template (printable pdf) This Farmers’ Market By Laws Template is a document that provides a skeleton upon which your organization fills in what its structure will be and what it’s official operating procedures are. The order of the articles is traditional, not mandatory. However each of the articles […]

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Producer only farmers’ markets

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What is a Producer-Only Farmers’ Market? It’s a farmers’ market where all members may only offer for sale what they produce themselves. They are not allowed to buy-in items for resale. These markets have adopted stricter standards than the State of Maine minimum of each member being able to sell up to 25% bought-in products. […]

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What items are eligible to be sold at market?

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Several questions commonly arise about the ingredients used to produce a product sold at market: Can the ingredients be purchased? Do they need to be made by the producers themselves? Must they be Maine produced? Can they come from out-of-state or commercial sources? The Orono Farmers’ Market has a draft version of what items are […]

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The no-show rule

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When someone joins a farmers’ market, we normally would expect them to show up at least for several market days. Unfortunately, not everyone does. There could be a variety of reasons for this. Sometimes their expectations are higher than reality, and they find that they aren’t going home with the pocketfuls of money they had […]

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Farmers’ markets: Feeding the hungry

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Farmers’ Markets and Food Cupboards. Several ways in which food from Maine farmers’ markets can make its way to the hungry. Detailed descriptions of methods already in place and working. Gleaning. Allowing people come in to “clean up” after your harvest is over. Set up a system for using EBT at your farmers’ market. Teach […]

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