LITTLE ROCK — Most of the state’s estimated 85 farmers markets will open by May, but a number of them have started selling earlier than usual, thanks to unusually mild weather — giving all such operations hopes of making this one of their best seasons.
An unseasonably warm winter, earlier plantings, and the expanded use of low-tech greenhouses are yielding crops that are weeks ahead of schedule.
Barnhill Orchards near Cabot had never sold strawberries in March before this year. The berries arrived five weeks ahead of schedule in some parts of the state.
“It’s been amazingly good strawberry crop weather,” said Bob Barnhill, a retired military officer who farms 20 acres near Cabot. Market shoppers already can buy cucumbers, summer squash, potatoes and peas — some of which are typically not harvested until mid-May, said Heather Friedrich, an employee with the University of Arkansas Department of Horticulture.
And since farmers “were doing so well and crops were coming in,” Hillcrest Farmers Market in Little Rock opened three weeks ahead of schedule, said Carolyn Staley, market manager. Many of its vendors use greenhouses.
Markets in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Hot Springs, Jonesboro and Fayetteville are among the largest, some having full-time managers.
Debra Bolding, a volunteer who helps organize the Howard County Farmers Market in Nashville, said the volume from growers in that area — many of whom are backyard gardeners and don’t use greenhouses — wasn’t enough to warrant opening earlier than usual. Most markets in the state operate on a small scale and rely on volunteers. “We’d have to do a lot of extra work to get the market open [early],” Bolding said.
Those ready to sell in advance of the Nashville market’s opening this Tuesday went to nearby Texarkana, where at least one market has been active since mid-April. Tara Stainton, owner of the 3-acre, organic farm just east of Vilonia, said that while the weather has been great, her spring has been difficult.
“It’s [been] hard for coolseason crops,” she said, lamenting a reduced broccoli crop at Rattle’s Garden, her family’s operation.
But by late April, Stainton said, she was selling other vegetables that were ahead of schedule, such as squash, “pretty hard.”
Since she began farming full time, Stainton has turned to online markets to compensate for the limited farmers market season.
And in Arkansas, a network of listing options has continued to grow.
The University of Arkansas operates ar.MarketMaker. uiuc.edu, a website allowing buyers and sellers from across the country to network. The Arkansas Farm Bureau has a “Best Pick Farms” link on its home page that includes farmers markets.
And, the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, through its ArkansasGrown. org, website features market and producer listings.
Market Maker promoter Ron Rainey, an agricultural economist with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in Little Rock, said an effort to establish cross-listings on each institution-supported website is under way.
Producers can also participate in Locallygrown. net, a site for online markets across the country.
Cody Hopkins, owner of Falling Sky Farm in Marshall, created a Locally Grown market for Conway (conway. locallygrown.net) in 2009 as a way to increase demand for his beef, pork, poultry and eggs.
Social media sites such as Facebook are also becoming a way to connect with customers.
“Seems like every farmer that is engaged in direct marketing ... has a presence on Facebook,” he said, “since it’s a nice way to get information out quickly about” goods such as early-season crops.
Hopkins said this season his online market featured strawberries from a Pine Bluff producer who said they were five weeks ahead of schedule.
“And that’s the way the year is going to be,” he said, adding that a grape farmer from Scotland, Ark., will see his normal August harvest pushed up to June. “It’s like we’re living in a different part of the world this year,” Hopkins said.
To contact this reporter:
lwhalen@arkansasonline.com
Business, Pages 63 on 04/29/2012