Farmers Markets Offer a Fresh Way to Stay in Business

Thirteen years ago, Scott Beylik persuaded his father and grandfather to try selling produce grown on the family’s Fillmore farm at the downtown Ventura farmers market as part of a Future Farmers of America high school experiment.

It wasn’t long before the family dropped its wholesale business and began selling exclusively to farmers markets. They now drive to 16 markets a week up and down the Southern California coast selling specialized produce.

“Everything we grow is sold through farmers markets,” said Beylik, 32, who runs the family farm and grows 16 acres of tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables hydroponically--a method in which greenhouse plants are grown in water without soil.

Beylik has been joined by a growing number of small farmers in recent years who, unable to compete with large commercial growers, see farmers markets as their best chance to keep their businesses alive.

In Ventura County there are seven markets weekly: two each in Ventura and Oxnard, along with markets in Camarillo, Ojai and Thousand Oaks. Los Angeles County hosts more than 50 each week.

In the past six years, the number of farmers markets has increased nationwide by nearly 60%, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. About 5,000 growers across California sell their produce directly to consumers at markets.

“It’s our only source of income,” said Maryann Carpenter of Coastal Organics in Camarillo. Carpenter’s husband, Paul, farms the family’s 15 acres, and she sells truckloads of produce in Ventura, Hollywood and Santa Monica. “We take a truckload down to the markets and try to take it home empty.”

Coastal Organics grows 70 seasonal items, including heirloom tomatoes, which are too delicate to ship and do not hold up well enough to be sold commercially.

For the small grower, opting for a farmers market instead of the wholesale industry cuts down on packing and shipping costs. It also eliminates the middleman, allowing for direct sales to the final customer--and higher profits.

Small farmers in Ventura County say they have found a niche with these community markets by focusing on a variety of specialty produce often difficult to find in grocery stores.

Some markets are open to vendors offering prepared foods and crafts, while others feature only farmers. These markets, often held in church parking lots or in downtown areas, are perhaps best known for the diversity of fresh produce: vine-ripened fruit, vegetables picked the day before and organically grown foods.

“One of the things we specialize in is pretty much trying to grow the perfect tomato for each individual. We grow five to six varieties of tomatoes,” said Beylik, who is experimenting with at least 20 additional types in his greenhouses. “It’s difficult to convince a chain store they need to sell five different types of tomatoes.”

Without farmers markets, agriculture officials say small growers, many of whom have been farming locally for generations, could not remain solvent.

“A number of them travel to markets in Southern California and sell exclusively to farmers markets. That’s their sole outlet,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “They wouldn’t exist if they didn’t have that outlet.”

Camarillo farmer Philip McGrath, 49, said his operation depends on selling directly to shoppers. “Farmers markets are saving the small farmers,” he said. “The small farmers cannot compete with the big corporations. These people grow thousands of acres and can grow things so much cheaper and ship it off all over the world. The small farmers can’t do that.”

McGrath, whose family has been active in farming in Oxnard and other parts of Ventura County for five generations, said he has been a regular at markets for two decades. “I was a conventional farmer all my life up to that point,” he said. “Prior to that, I was farming 300 acres of vegetables, three or four crops a year. Now, I just have 35 acres with 200 vegetable crops a year.”

Laura Avery, supervisor of Santa Monica’s Wednesday farmers market, said lower overhead and strong demand are helping small farmers remain viable.

“They are able to sell the fruit for what it cost to grow it. Farmers for so long are used to not getting their cost back,” she said.

Santa Monica’s operation, one of the most financially successful with about 90 farmers, generates about $3.5 million in annual sales. Each grower pays 4.5% of sales to help maintain the market, Avery said.

“It’s fairly profitable,” she said. “It’s enough for them at the very least to keep farming, pay their workers, get the truck fixed and take a vacation every now and then.”

On a good day in Santa Monica, Beylik said, he might sell 2,000 pounds of tomatoes. A farmer who would get $2 a pound for tomatoes at a market might only get 50 cents a pound from a wholesaler, he said.

But officials caution that markets are not always profitable. They say they are the best--and sometimes only--deal around for small growers.

“Some will barely make enough to pay for the gasoline for their truck, but they do not have an alternative for selling the produce from their small farm that would turn out the same return,” said Howard Tumlin of the Southland Farmers’ Market Assn., which represents 42 markets.

Farmers markets in Southern California evolved 24 years ago through the efforts of a group involved in the Interface Hunger Coalition, a group sponsored by a nondenominational church that wanted to provide access to quality fresh produce to low-income communities, Tumlin said.

After the first one was held in Gardena, such markets soared in popularity in the 1990s as city officials sought out ways to bring communities together, and more small farmers got involved from as far away as Sacramento and San Diego.

Today, there are more than 150 certified farmers markets in Southern California, and more continue to sprout. State regulations require that all farmers be certified producers in California and grow the produce they sell.

“Most of the big markets are full and have a waiting list. For new people who have just heard about markets, it’s really hard to get in. The good thing is that new markets open all the time,” Avery said.

Consumers have come to covet farmers markets, which are one of the few places where people have actual contact with farmers.

For 10 years, Charlotte Williamson of Pacific Palisades has visited a farmers market nearly every week, not only for her fresh produce but also to learn who grows it. “It’s become more of making friends with the farmers rather than just dealing with the supermarket. I like that,” she said.