On a sweltering July afternoon in the rural Southern Berkshire community of Monterey, grocery shoppers swarm a tent filled with fresh produce set up outside of the town community center.
“The Berkshire mobile Farmers Market is in response to a study that was done in 2018 that named transportation as the number one barrier for people getting locally grown food in Berkshire County," explained Margaret Moulton, Executive Director of agricultural advocacy group Berkshire Grown. “Now, obviously, there are other barriers, there's economic barriers, et cetera. But the way we, our consortium of five nonprofits, have really tried to attack that problem, is by bringing the market to low – not just low income – but low access communities. So, Monterey has a high-income weekend community, but also has people who are living with food insecurity. We can bring this market here, and the community can actually support itself. People can buy at full retail, they can use their SNAP and HIP, they can buy at 50%, they can take the food away for free. But everyone is shopping together, it's a stigma free environment, nobody knows who's paying at what level. And that was a real goal, is to create a farmers market space that felt like a community space at the same time.”
The mobile market began as a 10-week pilot program in 2023.
“That was in the fall, so, it's interesting," said manager Kate Bailey. "We're starting off in the summer, we've got a whole different set of crops coming in and different farms we can work with. We actually started off about at the same, maybe slightly below our sales for the pilot program and customers reach, so, but it's growing really quickly. The second week at this market in Monterey, the sales grew by 50%, so we're just looking forward to continuing to get the word out and getting more people out to the markets.”
For its first proper year of operation, the market has expanded to six sites and a 17-week schedule.
“So, we've only been running for two weeks so far, that's 11 markets," said Bailey. "But so far, we have got 43% of sales at the 100% off or 50% off level of our payment system, and about 10% of our transactions are with SNAP customers. We've had 320 shoppers so far.”
Produce purchased outright from 12 local farms was available to shoppers under the tent in Monterey.
“We have lettuces, kale, kohlrabi – which a lot of people don't know how to use, so we do some more PR about that," Bailey told WAMC. "We have some herbs, onions, carrots are new this week, garlic scapes, garlic. And then we've got some bread, jams, maple syrup, honey, an array of meat, chicken, beef and pork, and eggs and milk.”
Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Commissioner Ashley Randle was on site to observe the market as the finale of a farm tour held by Berkshire Grown. She tells WAMC that the program – backed in part by a three-year, almost $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture – is vital in a state where one in three residents are food insecure.
“We see that across the state, and COVID really brought to light how fragile the local food system was, and we saw a lot of these partnerships and community organizations coming together to be able to support local farms, to be able to make sure that consumers had access to local, fresh, healthy food," said Randle. "And so, this model is one model that we have across the state, and certainly in environmental justice communities or low to moderate income communities, there's a great need for local healthy food. And so, this model and access to the Healthy Incentive Program, which the Berkshire Mobile [Farmers] Market provides access where individuals can use their SNAP benefits and then double up their bucks through the Healthy Incentive Program to get more value for the dollar and stretch it just a little bit farther so they have access to the local food, which they should. It's a human right, and to be able to have access to all of the great food from the region is incredibly important.”
WAMC caught up with a first-time visitor to the traveling market.
“I haven't seen anything like a farmers market where I live in Worcester, so,” Anita Amponsah said.
Amponsah works in Monterey, almost a hundred miles to the west of her home in Central Mass.
“Well, I'm from Ghana in West Africa, so, I make a lot of spicy food, yeah,” she told WAMC.
Her bag of Berkshire produce would return with her to Worcester to become Ghanian delicacies.
“Jollof rice and maybe a meat and carrots stew,” said Amponsah.
Finding the locals friendly, the veg on display to her liking, and a particularly good jar of peach jam, Amponsah said she’d come back.
“Oh yes," she told WAMC. "I will come back again for the jam.”
