Supporting Family Farms

We had a question on Facebook recently about the prices at our Farmers Market.

You would think buying direct from a local farm would cost less than shipping goods across the planet and cutting in the distributors and grocers. From a consumer perspective that just seems to make sense, right? But it doesn’t always end up that way. Here’s why…

The one thing that modern industrial farming is really good at is delivering a LOT of mediocre food to a LOT of people as cheaply as possible. It’s what keeps us fed in February and an important part of modern life.

At a farmers market the focus is different. We want to offer fresh, local, seasonal foods. The plants are grown in our area and likely picked only days before the market. The meats and eggs are humanely raised and locally sourced. And the additional products made by small businesses, often with locally sourced ingredients.

Our farms are not big agribusinesses, but actual farmers doing much of the work themselves and paying a fair wage to their few local employees. And the quality of their products is head and shoulders above what you’ll find at the grocery store.

At the Hegewisch Farmers Market we want to support these local producers. We also want to make sure that everyone in our neighborhood has access to their products.

Approximately 1 in 5 households in Hegewisch qualify for LINK. So to help make the market more affordable we partnered with LinkUp Illinois to offer matching funds to any Link purchases. See if you qualify for an Illinois LINK Card.

For the other 4 out of 5 households, myself included, it becomes a personal choice. I’ve spent the season taste testing most every product offered at the market this year (I know, its a rough life).

I have found that the food offered by our vendors is worth every dollar they charge. And, having high quality food so easily accessible, my family is eating far more of the healthy fruits and vegetables than we might be otherwise.

I encourage each of you to stop by over the next four weeks and taste for yourselves. Treat yourself to a weeks supply of tomatoes or apples, grab some grass fed meat or farm fresh eggs. See how even just a couple fresh ingredients can make a whole meal so much tastier, without breaking the bank.

Enjoy the best foods our region has to offer, keep local family farms from becoming a thing of the past, and keep our vendors coming back to Hegewisch.

I’ll see you on Saturday!