By Lola Milholland
As this week has continued to unfold, I have been thinking a lot about whether or not Umi Organic should attend the farmers market, and why I feel these places where local farmers and producers come in person are so important. There’s always been a lot of pleasure in participating in the market for me. I love watching the seasons turn each week. I like gawking at the vegetables, which are so much more lustrous and alive than the ones sitting spritzed at the store. And then, of course, there’s the fun of cooking and eating from the market. As a business, we at Umi Organic attend the market because it brings us face to face with our customers. We invest in our fellow farmers market vendors by using their vegetables, chili oils, misos, and kimchis. Just by standing side by side and living through days of hail or surreal sun, we become intimate and connected to our local food community. We experience the thrill of the barter economy. And we get to playfully show people the endless ways you can eat local vegetables with noodles.
But obviously the farmers market is about something more, and that has become abundantly clear to me right now. Farmers feed us. Local farmers feed us in times of emergency. Local farmers caretake the land where we live. Local farmers employ people in our communities. Local farmers have food at peak nutrition, touched by the least number of hands. And right now, they need us, and we need them. The reason their food often costs more has to do with an insane gordian knot of politics and policies, but they are charging survival prices to produce food for us to eat, not so they will get rich but to do something they feel proud and excited to do: to provide us delicious, healthy food. As other supply chains go through turmoil, the direct relationship between a producer and an eater remains simple and resilient.
Beyond the farmers market, if you are in a position to invest in a farm, I encourage signing up for a CSA right now. What is a CSA? Every week, you will have a reliable source of vegetables for pickup or delivery to your door. There is a local organization where you can learn about most of the CSAs in our area called PACSAC. If you are on SNAP, you can access Double Up Food Bucks, a program that will match you dollar for dollar in many of your CSA purchases. I know our friends, Lili and her crew at Flying Coyote Farm and Aaron and Jesse and their crew at Stoneboat Farm, who both vend at Hollywood Farmers Market, would welcome you in their CSAs right now. With restaurant sales virtually nonexistent, farmers need extra investment from our community, and we can do that while also looking out for our own future.
There are also amazing CSA-like models that will deliver food to your door. We’re thinking of our friend Matt of Starter Bread who bakes sourdough whole grain bread and delivers weekly, and Carman Ranch, a collective of women ranchers in Eastern Oregon who raise beef, pork, and chicken. We are working with our friends at Ecotrust on ways we can make it easier to find all of these local producers who sell directly, especially in this changing environment, for the many people who cannot attend the farmers market.
Umi Organic will be at Hollywood Farmers Market on March 21 and at Portland Farmers Market at PSU on March 28. We will continually reevaluate, but if possible we also plan to attend farmers markets every Saturday. It wasn’t an easy decision, but right now, with the information we have, we feel eager to provide food to our community. Our farmers markets are like a grocery store, but in the open air. Our governor has designated them as essential. The market has implemented a series of precautions to keep the market safe including booth spacing, no music or seating, take out only, hand washing stations, rearranged booths, social distance, and more. We will have noodles and sauce, and also food to take home. See our full offerings at our online store. We are doing our very best to make sure your entire experience at the market is as safe and conscientious as it can be! We will maintain distance from you. We will prepack everything in a sanitary environment. We will absolutely not participate if we feel sick. We are showing up because we believe what Hollywood Farmers Market manager Pritha Golden wrote to all of us: “We are essential… We are part of the solution.”
Hollywood Farmers Market
NE Hancock between 44th and 45th Avenues, Portland, Oregon
December–March: 1st & 3rd Saturdays, 9AM – 1PM
April–September: Every Saturday, 8AM – 1PM
October–November: Every Saturday, 9AM – 1PM
Portland Farmers Market at PSU
PSU Farmers Market: South Park Blocks between SW College & Montgomery
Weekly, 8:30 AM - 2 PM