The small city of Tieton in the upper Yakima Valley has established six Farmers Markets for this summer.  The first one was on Saturday, July 17th.  Others are scheduled every two weeks through September.  We here at IWF were instrumental in helping the community and a very dedicated group of volunteers start up the markets so we have a pretty good idea of what was involved.

Farmers Markets are a dime a dozen on the west side of the mountains but there are not so many in eastern Washington.  An article about the new market in Tieton and another in nearby Selah in the Yakima Herald, notes that although there are about 150 farmers markets in the state, only a handful of those are in eastern Washington.  King County, by contrast, has 40.  But then, markets over here have been around for awhile and they are subsidized by the city of Seattle, other cities or the county.

Markets serve more purposes in a small town in eastern Washington than they do in western Washington.  Over here, a set of people look forward to buying local and/or organic food from small farmers.  It's also a great place to have a crepe or a burrito and to bump into friends and acquaintances and catch up.  In eastern Washington, these are also important.  However, in addition, local people have the opportunity to add to their family income stream.  People see that others are selling berries or jewelry or plants and realize that they could do the same.  They could expand their garden and grow more corn or tomatoes.  They could bring their leather goods to sell or go through the process of getting their county health certificate and make a small business out of making those special tamales that their friends rave about. 

Having a farmers market is key to creating a tapestry of economic development in a small agriculturally-oriented community.  However, they are hard to bring about. In calling around to market managers in the Yakima Valley, it became clear that providing the energy to get a market going and then keep it going was an effort of love on the part of 1-2 people in each place where markets have survived.  Only one market, the large Yakima Farmers Market, is able to pay a market manager to hold things together. 

Most importantly, having a market requires a lot of community and governmental support. The city of Tieton is as supportive to this and other initiatives as any jurisdiction we've ever run across.  I sometimes tell people that the mayor's position on every request is "Yes!"  That's hugely important in making things happen, especially in an area like rural eastern Washington where survival is not a given and discouragement can get the best of a community.

My experience with this farmers market in Tieton is that it took the following:

• A small grant from the USDA Rural Development office to get outside assistance (IWF in this case) to put time and attention on the project, particularly the start-up aspects
• Support from a local arts-oriented group of about a dozen transplanted west-siders, Mighty Tieton, that has developed roots in Tieton, made some investments in the town that slowed considerably when the economy tanked, and gently made themselves a part of the community
• A very supportive city government and mayor plus a newly formed Economic Development Committee
• More assistance from the USDA in the form of a facilitator for community meetings
• A willingness on the part of people to work across the Anglo/Latino divide
• A few very dedicated volunteers who are willing to work very hard

That is a lot of support required to provide but one piece in one town during an economic downturn.   Without it and similar support around other parts of economic development activities, we might lose a significant part of rural Washington.  I strongly suspect that if people throughout the state could really understand that and the losses entailed in that failure, there would be more emphasis on providing that support and working out even more ways to help.