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.

Types of farmers’ market members

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It may be useful in discussions about markets to categorize all the various members of farmers’ markets in some way. It is acknowledged that there are certainly other ways to categorize market members and that this particular method of ignores the size of their operation, although most of Maine’s farmers’ market members are micro-businesses, too […]

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How do YOU spell it?

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You see it on your market’s signs. You probably have to write it at least a dozen times a year. Not everyone has the same understanding of basic English grammar to get it right every time. Here’s how an English teacher might explain it: Farmer’s Market: a market belonging to a single farmer. Farmers’ Market: […]

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Farmers’ Market Ads We’d Like to See

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Sample Ad #1: Take a break. Get Outdoors. Go Shopping Outdoors. See what’s in season for dinner this week. Avoid eating industrial commodity foods from far away sold under fluorescent lights. Gather the goodness created by the local earth, the local rain, the local sunshine and the local people. Take a stand against the winter […]

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