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Totally agree. Our goverment is corrupt and the sheepeople just blindly follow
Fraud and corruption at the farmers market…people ruin everything!
It's similar in all fields–tons of really stupid people letting the crooks and phonies get away with their scams. I went to a farmers' market and knew within fifteen minutes that much of the produce came from California or Mexico.
These customers have "no idea" that the farmers' market is a scam. How is that possible when it is so obvious? We need strict government regulations and inspections to control this nonsense because all of the players have proven they won't demand integrity.
There's no other way to get the fake farmers out of the farmers' markets. The customers are too stupid to boycott fake farmers markets
although that would solve the problem.
05:52
It's about both price and quality
Never ever give the government more power!!!
Yep! The Fifth Estate documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYwB63YslbA
taxation is theft
It should be the responsibility of the farmers markets organization to regulate their own principles! What's the point in first place?
I'm for the government, a little. Just have some kind of certification that you're growing something yourself. I know of people that go to the supermarket and them repackage the produce in bags with their sticker on it, then sell it for two times as much as the farmer's market. No, that's not fair to the growers or the customers.
Media and government have masterfully perfected fraud.
Who cares who sells it. Honestly, why does it even matter? I'll be more concerned about it if they said it was organic and it wasn't. This was an absolute facepalm.
Here in Austin, the farmers market has to be licensed, and only allowed to have vendors that are selling their own product. They are expected to enforce the rule. If you are selling more than 50k per year, then you need a permit. Most farmers market charge 25 dollars for an application process, some as high as 100 dollars. Simple, straightforward government intervention that does a good job of preventing resellers.
Thank you government, you did it right.
A lack of regulation by the government worked out great for the early 20th century meat industry. eye roll
Every anti-regulation person on here needs to read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, then get to work in their local communities thinking about ways that local farmers can ask the government to put in simple regulation that protects you guys from bad actors.
Here in Texas all growers under 50k are protected from regulation, but those big bad actors at farmers markets, they would be held accountable for lying and the damage they have done to the value of the marketplace.
Good regulation builds better markets.
A couple of years ago we went to a very popular acreage vegetable seller. We poked around and chose some produce, and I happened to look through a dooreway into a backroom. And there was a young guy unbagging carrots into a tub, instantly creating premium farm fresh carrots out of ordinary grocery store carrots.
True. Bureaucracy sucks. Of course, there's the flip-side too, when big-money slips in. All it will take is one big-money player — say a Silicon Valley startup that becomes the [centralized] Uber that disrupts [decentralized] farmers markets — to buy influence and corrupt the self-inspection process. Remember all those local cab companies that Uber sent out of business and cabbies who are making less and forced to use their own cars to eke out a living with Uber.
Sorry but they are failing at policing themselves. A major farmers market in Ontario started kicking out honest farmers/vendors because they were exposing how so many were lying about growing the food when they were resellers. If people knew they were resellers, they would not be excited to buy it from them. They want farm to table, not farm to resellers to table.
F..k yeahhh, right on Curris. This is bs. Here in Hawaii this is big… including people taking Ag Land, finding loop holes in the Law such as renting container homes to help pay their mortgage but no growing any food, they just want an excuse to live there. Those properties are cheaper and get tax benefits for a reason, so regular local people have the chance to actually farm and help with food sufficiency and production in the island.
Planting 30 banana trees, or an orchard is not farming or producing food… is granola bs.
Most farmers market are also aiming tourists and "art"… "green foods"..
Which is fine, but the farmers should be priority. Bro this guy tried to lease me part of his land.. not a bad person, but of course he wanted me to be the one farming in there so he could get the authorities out of his neck and keep renting his container homes with no problems. He even complained about ilegal immigrants that were actually farming nearby… ugly.
By the way, immigrants were doing the landscape for him, as white people were renting the container homes and having a good time in paradise. Im white too, but thats a problem, no hypocrisy, there is local families here, and local culture. Im a immigrant as well. We got to address this issues.
The Government is like an oversized hog, once you open the door it will force it's way in and eat your lunch and everyone else's.
How frustrating! I do think there needs to be more government regulation, but simply in the form of showing proof. Send an inspector to their 'farms' and verify the fields for each item they sell. There should NEVER be bananas at a Canadian farmer's market. It's just sad that consumers don't know that bananas don't grow in Canada.
Hi, in europe, thier is a simple rule/law: You have to say where the product commes from: So on top of the vegetable tag, their is the price and coutry or region it commes from. That how i very quikly understood that the vegetables i bought in the market where not from their own farm. Bananas from Canaries iland, Tomatoes from maroco…. Simple and effective.
The government is good for utilities and regulating truly dangerous things.
In this situation it would be better to shame the resellers to at least buy from local small farms.
Pure neck beard
This didn't age well 0:32
Local government can organize the _farmer's markets and does so in European nations ! This is not about fines, or a lot of red tape. It is social pressure, being watched by your peers (the competition) and local authorities pushing the cheaters. Especially the smaller markets are ONLY for producers, people know each other, a little cheating is possible, but they have to remain plausible.
That helps local, smaller and organic producers, and also protects the consumers from being ripped off. If a vendor has cabbage or lettuce it is hard to distinguish if they grew it themselves. And "organic" is a protected label in the EU. If you claim to produce with no herbicides and pesticides but that do not bother to get the certificitation (these are private orgs) you might get away with some cheating. But if a farmer or homesteader uses the chemicals, fertilizer on a regular base, or their way to raise livestock is not better – the locals WILL know. The wanna be cheaters have to get the herbicides, pesticides, fodder, it is delivered, neighbours see them applying it.
if they co not bring out compost or have cover crops it will be noticed, where does the fertility come from ?
Uncertified allegedly "organic" produce might see some emergency spraying and they do not admit to it to get the higher prices – but by and large if they claim to produce in a "natural" manner it will be better.
The other honest sellers will notice resellers posing as growers, you will get the side eye, some passive aggressive jokes in the pub, or after church – and if that does not help it will be a talking to by the local organizers (that work for the muncipality). If that does not help the seller could be excluded from selling at that place. The farmer's market happens at a public space and it is NOT for profit, the town or city organizes them for the public good. = helping small producers and consumers that want quality and things they cannot get in retail.
Now, here and there there could be nepotism and corruption. Everyone from the scene knows someone is cheating, the mayor (or the person in charge) does nothing about it. At some point the mayor would hear about it and if he or she protects the cheaters they might get away wih it. That in itself will not lose a mayor an election. But a mayor that is corrupt in that regard likely also has other stuff going on.
Smaller markets: you need to be a producer or you cannot sell at a _farmer's market. End of story, you do not get a stand. At larger marketts ressellers might be allowed BUT they eithe have to announce it or are in a separate area, so it is immediately clear for the consumers. That means the brand and quality claim of "farmer's market" is not tarnished.
Those stands do not cost a lot btw, it is a way to promote local biz. If the market is large, some of them may be resellers (for parts of the produce) but there are limits and the smaller markets are geared towards supporting the smaller and local producers. The vendors come from around 10 – 30 minutes driving distance, and at that level people (and even mores so farmers) KNOW each other. they know that that farmer never had any cabbage so how come he or she is seling it ?
Some "cheating" will be tolerated (it would be a hassle to control it, it is mostly a honor based system), but if they do not have a LOT of their own produce to sell, they do not get a spot. And that cannot be undermined by for-profits – and politicians have elections t win and need to consider more than financial advantages. (a corrupt mayor would make the ill gotten bucks with construction projects not by risking geting negative attention by how the farmer's market is handled).
The local mayor would get some heat from local farmers and they would have the support from local consumers.
Great point, great content.
The easiest non government way to limit most of the fraud is to have the farmers market organization itself do self policing to deny resellers if they don't want re-sellers at their market. They can put it in their contract you sign when signing up for the farmers market. Being found out after the fact can then come with penalties that are written into the contract. And then your application for a vendor stall could then just require basic information about where the farm is located and what is grown/ where the goods come from.
Another way is to have local non profits work with the market organizations to police and publicly rate the quality of the sellers. Similar to how there are non profit organizations that monitor and score the efficiency and quality of charities. These non profits can do the investigating just like the cbc did and report their findings to the market organizations.
It is not a hard problem to mitigate. It just takes forethought, effort, and a community coming together to care for each other behind the scenes. Sometimes that is unfortunately hardest part to make happen though. There is no way to force community action if the people choose to be disinterested. It can't happen if nobody is willing to step up and put in the time and effort.