Farmer Genevieve Stillman has a lot of feelings about farmers markets.
“When you shop at a local farmers market, those dollars stay local and save farmland,” she says. For Stillman and her husband, Glenn Stillman, farming is a lifestyle choice. “We’re here to steward the land and to have our own ecology… And we eat amazing food,” Genevieve says. “People have forgotten how good, good food is. We’ve been trained to get apathetic about how good food can taste. Produce looks good at the supermarket, but tastes like nothing.”
Lexington resident Sonia DeMarta echoes Stillman’s feelings about tasteless produce. Soon after she moved from Venezuela to the United States, she says, “I bought apples at the grocery store. They were covered in wax and tasted mealy.” DeMarta longed for the public markets she grew up with in Venezuela. “They were in every town. They were messy and noisy. I loved going to them.” DeMarta moved to Newton in 1995 and was delighted to discover the Newton Farmers Market. Two years later, she moved to Lexington. “I started asking around—where’s the market?”
DeMarta was moved to action by an article she read in World Watch Magazine, “Where Have All The Farmers Gone,” in which author Brian Halweil discussed the myriad challenges faced by farmers worldwide and advocated for a local approach to build resilient food systems.
Inspired by Halweil, concerned about the razor-thin margins farms earn by selling to supermarkets, and eager to bring better food to her new hometown, DeMarta said to her new friend Lori Deliso in 2002, “We’ve got to start a farmers market!”
Each time DeMarta mentioned starting a market, Deliso pushed her off. Deliso’s husband, Dave Jick, had just opened his Somerville shop Dave’s Fresh Pasta in 1999, so Deliso was fully aware of how challenging food entrepreneurship was. “But Sonia would not stop asking,” Deliso says with a laugh.
DeMarta’s persistence paid off. Deliso agreed to help and after over a year and a half of research and meetings, DeMarta, Deliso and mutual friend Raul Marquis recruited about 15 local farmers, food producers and an army of volunteers to launch the first Lexington Farmers Market (LFM) on a Tuesday afternoon in 2005. DeMarta smiles as she recalls members of the William Diamond Junior Fife and Drum Corps arriving after school dismissal to perform and mark the occasion—a tradition still maintained today.
This year on May 27, the Select Board gathered on a sunny Tuesday afternoon at the Worthen Road Practice Field to ring the opening bell for the 21st season of the farmers market. Among the 23 food producers were three of this season’s eight new vendors.
“The diversity of vendors at the LFM is really cool,” said Andrew Maggiore, a former vendor and new LFM manager. “People will say ‘why don’t you have this or why don’t you have that?’ I spent a lot of time trying to fill the gaps.”
When Farfalle Italian Market reached out wanting to sell cheese bread, Maggiore realized Farfalle could fill the hole left by the recent closure of longtime vendor Valicenti Pasta Farm. “I went there and said ‘cheese bread is great, but what we really need is pasta and sauce,’ and they said ‘oh, we can do that, too.”
Maggiore sported an orange LFM baseball hat and running shoes to set up for the second market of the season. Carrying two large empty banana boxes, Maggiore nearly passed Farfalle’s space before slowing his pace. “How are you doing, Ben?” he asked Farfalle’s chef, Ben Peacock.
Peacock and his wife, Renee, unloaded signs and tablecloths for the specialty grocer and restaurant’s first-ever LFM appearance. Farfalle has been open in Concord for 18 years, and Peacock would like to grow its customer base living in Lexington. “If we get to talk to ten people today, that will be a success for us,” Peacock said about his goals for their first market outing.
Always friendly and personable, Maggiore exchanged pleasantries with Peacock and speed walked to Farmer Dave’s stand, where he left the two empty boxes. As part of the LFM’s commitment to increasing access to healthy foods, the market partners with food rescue organization Food Link to collect unsold produce that vendors opt to donate at the end of the market in lieu of restocking their inventory.
Vendor Ramon Hohlenwerger of Microgreens By The Sea describes the predicament of selling at farmers markets: “It’s challenging, I never know exactly what I’m going to sell. I can bring 150 oz. of produce and come home with 120 oz. The perfect market day is when the market closes at 6 p.m. and you sell out at 5:59 p.m.,” he says. “Coming back with full hands is challenging—then I have to be creative and sometimes produce goes bad.”
On the challenge of always shopping at a farmers market, Genevieve says, “In Massachusetts, we vote on a minimum wage, regulating certain things. If you don’t buy from local farmers, then you have to bail them out in order to have them stay. That’s not a good business model. Having to subsidize something to have it exist is not sustainable.”
The last thing the Stillmans want is a handout. As if farming in New England isn’t hard enough with our rocky soils, short growing season and changing climate, the Stillmans pile on their own challenges, like wanting to be the first to offer sweet corn.
According to the Massachusetts Harvest Calendar, the sweet corn season runs from August through September, with early season beginning July 15. But at the July 1 and 8 farmers markets, a six-foot table at the Stillman’s Farm stand was covered with corn they had picked that morning. “My husband sees it as his personal challenge to have corn first. He does acrobatics to make that happen,” Genevieve says. “We harvest corn and berries every day.”
The sugars in sweet corn rapidly convert to starch after harvest, so recipes that call for boiling corn in sugar water or adding strong flavors like cheese help to offset the chalky mouthfeel in older corn. Corn picked earlier in the day is simpler to prepare: steam for four minutes and feel good about supporting local jobs and local agriculture. “When you buy corn that is grown in a different state, you don’t employ the people who pick it or support the higher minimum wage that voters in Massachusetts voted for,” Genevieve says.
She continues, “If you want [good food] in your community, you have to show up and buy like you’re going to the supermarket. It’s not enough to buy a pint or two of berries. Shop with your eyes. Make your dinner plans after you come back with garlic scapes you didn’t know you needed.”
William Canes, founder of all natural cocktail mix maker Wicked Bess, is in his third year selling at the LFM. There’s a big difference, he explains, between selling at a market where people go to hang out and selling at a market where people go to shop.
Saturday markets in Wakefield and Somerville’s Union Square are cited by many vendors as two great shopping markets. Copley is known for its high volume of transactions, but the tradeoff is that its downtown location and earlier start time (11 a.m. versus Lexington’s 2 p.m. start) can make it stressful to attend—especially when there is produce that needs to be harvested first. While attendance at the LFM today rarely exceeds the 1,000+ daily visitors it once regularly welcomed, the LFM remains a market that vendors are content to attend.
Since the LFM’s founding, it has worked to provide, “greater access to fresh, locally grown and produced food to community members of all income levels,” as stated in its mission statement. Initially, the LFM created its own vouchers that were distributed to families in need. A few years later, LFM volunteers used donated funds to purchase food from the market and deliver it to a residential shelter run by the Somerville Homeless Coalition.
In 2010, the LFM began to accept a new type of payment, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds, and it committed to supporting a SNAP match program. Today, the maximum SNAP match at the LFM is $15. In other words, $15 of SNAP buys $30 of food at the Lexington Farmers Market.
While it is common today for area farmers markets to accept SNAP and offer a SNAP match, in 2010, the LFM was the only farmers market in MetroWest Boston to offer these benefits. During and after the global pandemic, the government recognized a growing need for food assistance and increased SNAP eligibility and benefits.
Last year, the LFM estimated that over $61,000 was transacted at the market using food assistance funds—about half through a combination of SNAP and the LFM’s SNAP match, and the other half via the state’s Healthy Incentives Program (HIP), currently a $40 credit per household per month to purchase fruits and vegetables from certified farms. “Food assistance is really important for those who need it, and it’s also important for the local economy and for the farmers and vendors who receive those dollars,” says Leslie Wilcott-Henrie, president of the LFM board.
In May, Wilcott-Henrie explained that with a, “great big cloud hanging over all of us threatening to cut funding to food assistance programs,” the LFM and Town officials began to discuss, “different ways that we can support those on food assistance.” In early July, the great big cloud burst, with funding for food assistance cut in both federal and state budgets.
Today, the Lexington Farmers Market is a 501(c)(4) organization with four sources of income: sponsorships, donations, grants and vendor fees. Money from the first three buckets is earmarked to support food assistance programs and marketing initiatives like Power of Produce (POP) Club, a loyalty program for families with children.
Seven local organizations are sponsors this season, and most are long-term relationships. Wilcott-Henrie explains that donations to the LFM spiked just after the global pandemic, but have waned in the years since. Grants are challenging to secure due to the market’s 501(c)(4) designation—contributions to the LFM are not tax deductible. With food insecurity continuing to grow across the state, it will be challenging for the LFM to not only fill the gap created by new federal and state budgets, but to also keep up with the growing population of hungry Massachusetts residents, about 2 million people today.
Vendor fees are set to cover the market’s administrative costs—insurance, licenses, and marketing and advertising expenses. LFM vendors describe the fees as fair and middle-of-the road at about $25 per market; they quote paying fees ranging from $10 to $35 to sell at other area markets.
At least four vendors interviewed for this article shared their appreciation, unprompted, for the LFM’s extensive marketing efforts.
“But if the community doesn’t shop,” Genevieve says, “it just doesn’t work.” After the Canal District Market in Worcester closed, a new market opened just 15 minutes away in Shrewsbury. Stillman attended at both markets.
“We stopped going [to Shrewsbury] last year and now there’s no market at all in Shrewsbury. The community was not behind it. The organizers wanted one, but the community didn’t come out and shop,” Genevieve pauses. “At Copley, we have virtue signalers who will shop once and post all over Instagram and that’s it—they never come back. You have to go every week. Or three times a month. Showing up once doesn’t support all the vendors there.”
Just like farmers who work in all weather conditions, the LFM is open rain or shine. This year, when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit on June 24, market staff worked with Town departments to set up a shade tent with chairs, a fan misting water and cold drinking water for all. The LFM closes only in the event of a public safety emergency.
Most of the LFM vendor interviewees also shared that farmers markets make up over 75% of their annual sales. While it may not be fun to set up and sell in rain or extreme heat, livelihoods depend on it. Every vendor that was willing to talk about their sales shared that poor weather is the biggest contributor to a slow day of sales, with one vendor quoting an average of a 30% reduction due to rain.
Back at the market, Maggiore speed walked back to the manager tent, where McKenna Bloom was looking for him. She explained that her phone, keys and entire market setup for Zahava Bakery were stuck in her locked car. Bloom borrowed a vendor’s phone to call for help, but it didn’t look good: because she lives on Hanscom Air Force Base, retrieving her spare key would not be straightforward. Maggiore offered his sympathies as Bloom turned to watch Worthen Road for the roadside assistance truck she called.
Meanwhile, sheep farmer and cheesemaker Julie Whitcomb hung sheep pelts and a tall Blackeyed Susan Sheep Dairy sign from the trusses of her centrally located tent. A wooden shelf displayed wedges of hard cheeses and an ice-filled basket to keep sampled cheese wedges cool atop a checkered tablecloth. In her third year of vending at the LFM, Whitcomb has learned that signage and sampling attract the curious to her tent. Once they are within earshot, Whitcomb’s affable nature turns strangers into customers.
Behind Whitcomb’s almost fully setup tent, Hi-Rise Bakery was just starting to set up, but their tent was not going up smoothly. Whitcomb and a market volunteer swarmed in to help and share tent-opening tips. In a later interview, Whitcomb said, “The best resources are other vendors who help with lots of information.”
About half an hour after the opening market bell, Zahava Bakery’s inaugural LFM was saved: Bloom’s husband Adam arrived at the LFM with the spare car key. “Even though we started 40 minutes late, we sold out of everything that day except three babkas,” Bloom says. It only takes one look at Zahava’s tahini chocolate chip cookies to find this unsurprising.
Wilcott-Henrie cites a study that observed shoppers engaging in 12 to 15 human interactions at each visit to a farmers market, but only one to two interactions at a supermarket. “Farmers markets are not just about buying food. They’re about community,” Wilcott-Henrie says. “Bowling alone is not part of our ethos.”
In a world where technology and A.I. are trying to remove all of the unpleasant friction from our lives, supporting the LFM can feel analog, inconvenient and hard. But perhaps that is the LFM’s greatest gift to the community: building a space to feel human, be connected and nourish your family.
The 2025 Lexington Farmers Market is on Tuesdays from 2 – 6:30 p.m. at the Worthen Road Practice Field.
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