Iowa City holds first in-person farmer's market since start of pandemic - kwwl.com - kwwl.com

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IOWA CITY, Iowa (KWWL) -- With the arrival of Spring, farmer's markets returned across Eastern Iowa on Saturday. In Iowa City, it was the first time the market was held in person in more than a year.

The city partnered with 'Field to Family' last spring to make sure Eastern Iowa Farmers who rely on markets to sell produce, meat, dairy, plants, or other products could still do so.

Customers were able to shop virtually with local farmers, by ordering online and then picking it up in a contact-free drive through.

"It is a lot of farmers coming into one central hub where orders are aggregated and distributed," Field to Family Communication and Events Coordinator Julia Poska said. "Customers can shop from many different farmers just in one convenient click of a button."

While Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds allowed farmer's markets to reopen with restrictions in late April, Iowa City kept its market virtual the entire season.

"Once we committed to online, we needed to keep it the entire season," Coordinator Tammy Neumann said. "It would have been difficult to switch."

For almost 20 years, Buffalo Ridge Orchard, located near Central City, has operated a stall at the Iowa City Farmer's market.

"My mother-in-law started coming to the farmers market here in 2003," Marcus Johnson said. "We've just been expanding and adding more vegetables and more apples over the past few years."

Johnson and his wife Emma sold herbs at their stand on Saturday. In the coming weeks, they plan to add lettuce and kale to the stand.

The virtual market allowed Buffalo Ridge Orchard to not only get through the last year but continue and expand its customer base.

As the in-person farmers market opened its doors on Saturday, the virtual market kicked off its second year as well, though Posak said they are not in competition with one another.

"We see it as a way to expand access, enhance access and create as many opportunities as possible for our community to connect with local farmers. Our goal is for more people in our community to be eating local, no matter where they're getting that food from," she said.

The website has a strict timetable: farmers submit their projected supply on the weekend, then customers shop from Tuesday until Wednesday at noon, then farmers drop their food off at Field to Family to end the week, where it's individually packaged.

Johnson is one of a handful of vendors who are participating in both markets at the same time.

"We have talked about it with our customers and got some feedback," Johnson said. "Some customers wanted to continue selling or buying products online, and other customers wanted to come to the market."

At the in-person market, masks are required. There are also a reduced number of vendors and people allowed inside the market itself. Despite the year plus hiatus, Neumann said it picked up Saturday right where it left off.

"It feels just like it did two years ago," Neumann said. "We have shoppers that came in at 7:30 and purchased what they wanted and left. Then about 9:30 or so, we start really picking up."

For farmers like Johnson, the busy market was a welcoming sight. For the first weekend, he saw solid sales both in-person and online.

"It is nice to be back and interacting with people again and see the customers that we've been selling to for a couple of years and get to see new customers," he said.

The market is open Saturday mornings from 7:30 am to noon and Wednesday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m. The season runs now through October.

Some of Johnson's crops were damaged by last week's cold snap. Between April 20 and 22, temperatures dipped into the 20's, destroying some crops and pardoning others. He estimates he lost between 30 and 50% of their apple crop.

"It was a little tougher in some of our low lying orchards," he said.

Johnson said he is still assessing damage to his crops. He said it will be a few weeks before he knows the true scale and cost of the cold weather.

"Sometimes stuff that we think we lost like it actually starts fruiting a little bit better," he said. "Just depends on how it gets pollinated."

To offset some of the losses, Johnson said they are looking at growing some more vegetables such as squash and pumpkins in the fall.

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Iowa City holds first in-person farmer's market since start of pandemic - kwwl.com - kwwl.com
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