With their fee more than doubled and just a third of their former customer base, Naomi and Mami Tomoda are unsure if they want to rejoin next year’s Point Reyes Farmers Market. Before the pandemic, the mother and daughter paid $27 a week to the market’s steering committee to sell their gluten-free crackers and vegetable dips. After the market shifted out of local control last year, the Tomodas’ fees increased to $65. And many of the locals who once regularly bought their Mami’s Crunch products stopped coming.
“We would like to continue, and we love the feeling of a community market, but that has not been the case,” Mami said. “We wish locals would come out more and support. It’s a different market now.”
Vendors and customers agree that it was the Agricultural Institute of Marin that rescued the market from demise when it took over last year. In 2020, the market’s volunteer steering committee blamed a confluence of factors, including the pandemic, the retirement of multiple farmers and the success of farm stands, for its difficulties raising funds and filling the booths with vendors.
AIM, which runs nine farmers markets across the Bay Area, brought the market back to life. This summer, it had 900 visitors on an average Saturday, and the number of vendors jumped to nearly 30, up from 17 in 2020. Point Reyes shoppers can now buy hot-weather crops like grapes, peppers and eggplants that don’t grow in cool coastal Marin.
But some locals lamented the shifting character of the market. The vendors are still from California farms, but the steering committee, a team of local volunteers, was once laser-focused on food produced within 20 miles of the village. “It was a small-town, for-the-people, by-the-people kind of thing,” said Luke Regalbuto, a vendor and former co-chair of the committee. “AIM is a great organization, but it’s just a different thing now.” Mr. Regalbuto said the crowds this year fluctuated more than they once did and seemed to depend on the ebb and flow of tourism. “We did notice the loss of that local business,” he said. “If it was a slow weekend in Point Reyes due to bad weather, it was really slow.”
Suzanne D’Coney, who sat on the former steering committee for five years and has continued to be a regular shopper, acknowledged that AIM saved the market, which was losing local producers even before the pandemic. But she misses the hyper-local feel and wishes the market would focus on produce over crafts. “It used to be more of a gathering place, and I don’t see as many locals as I used to,” Ms. D’Coney said. “There’s like four jewelers some days. Who needs that? It’s good for the tourists.”
AIM’s manager for the market, Ariel Vaughan, said she has made a concerted effort to recruit West Marin producers, but the task has been challenging, not least because small farms have other ways of selling their produce. “It’s not that I haven’t tried,” Ms. Vaughan said. “Farm stands in West Marin became very popular during Covid, and that worked for people. One thing I’ve realized is that the market has to be viable for the producer as well.”
This summer’s market featured just a few vendors who had participated before AIM took over, and next summer, that number could be even lower. The Tomodas, who have participated for eight years, are unsure about the viability of returning. Wild West Ferments, which is run by Mr. Regalbuto and Maggie Beth Levinger, will be moving into the former Cowgirl Creamery this spring, giving them a physical retail space as an alternative to the market booths they’ve maintained for 12 years.
As AIM prepares for next summer’s market, the organization is making efforts to improve local participation. The institute will give $15 booth fee discounts to West Marin producers with funds from a Kaiser Permanente grant. Local farmers would pay as low as $45 for a 10’-by-10’ space. Another $6,000 raised for AIM by a special performance of actress and agriculture supporter Vivien Straus’s one-woman show will also help support the market and AIM’s Rollin’ Root mobile markets this year.
Andy Naja-Riese, AIM’s chief executive officer, encouraged hyper-local farmers and food sellers to contact the institute about the discounts. He said the booth fees, which ranged up to $75 a day last year for hot-food vendors, are important to pay for AIM’s full-time staff, insurance, operations and marketing. The steering committee had far fewer expenses.
Local participation, Mr. Naja-Riese added, is made difficult for reasons beyond AIM’s control. The county’s last crop report showed Marin fruit and vegetable growers slashed their overall acreage by 42 percent last year, with many fields and orchards lying fallow because there was so little water to go around. And the staffing shortages felt nationwide have afflicted local small businesses: three out of the four hot-food vendors that AIM had lined up were unable to find anyone to manage their booths.
Though the market has changed somewhat, Ms. Vaughan said it is on the upswing and has recovered in tandem with coastal tourism. “In general, visitors coming back to Point Reyes helped bolster the market,” she said. “I don’t think everyone who was a regular shopper in the past has returned to that habit, but a significant number have.”
The 2023 market will open on June 10, the Saturday after Western Weekend.