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Hello, Charlottesville Community!
The farmers markets in your community sustain local farms, provide fresh food, create and sustain jobs while boosting the local economy and keeping rural land from development.
Farmers Markets don’t just happen!
They are designed in partnership with the people they serve and create a space where market operators, farmers, shoppers, and neighbors can collaborate to meet the evolving needs of their community. How did our markets come to be? How have they grown? What are the challenges, successes, and plans for the future? What changes do we need to make to be inclusive and sustainable?
As a community, we could do so much more. For the past 30 years, market visionaries have proposed to be open more than a few times a week, to host more vendors, to improve the space to be more welcoming, and to protect vendors and customers from weather extremes. None of our markets have a permanent home, and take place on rented land, using most of the income to pay for the space, with no opportunity to invest. As a community, how can we make improvements?
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