An on-campus farmer’s market will be held Tuesday, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., in front of Sbisa Dining Hall, featuring a variety of vendors from the area.
The Texas A&M Farmer’s Market began in the fall of 2016 and is presented by Chartwells, the campus dining services, to provide students with an opportunity to meet local producers, farmers and artisans. There are currently 18 local vendors expected at the market, some of whom will be traveling from the Houston area, while others are local to Bryan-College Station.
Although this event is not unique to Texas A&M, Courtney Bryant Hill, Chartwells regional director of marketing and guest experience, said in an email interview thousands of students have attended in previous years.
“As consumers, we often travel to our locations where we make our purchases, with little thought of where the items are coming from or who is producing them,” Hill said. “Our farmer’s market will give students a chance to have conversations with the people who are growing or producing the items they see at the market.”
Joseph Stark, a vendor from Eureka Urban Acres Farm, practices sustainable farming methods in The Heights community north of Houston.
“You identify homeowners or landowners in your area and you build your gardens on basically donated land,” Stark said. “I trade vegetables for rent. Once I meet a homeowner who wants to host a garden, I just put in all the work … and once I start to harvest I give that homeowner a $30 credit at the farmer’s market every week, so they come buy what they want to buy.”
This will be Stark’s first year to participate as a vendor in the A&M Farmer’s Market. He said he works closely with the University of Houston, also a part of Chartwells’ sustainability program. Stark said this connection made him want to work with A&M as well.
“I strive to purchase organic seeds, as locally as possible — if I find a plant breeder in the area, I purchase from them,” Stark said. “I create as much of my own compost as I can by collecting food scraps from my neighbors, or grass clippings from the curb or composting my own waste.”
Peggy Higgins with Top That! Cake Designs will be bringing fresh bread, muffins, cinnamon rolls and brownies. Though she also participates in a farmer’s market in Conroe, Texas, on the weekends, this will be her first year with the A&M Farmer’s Market.
“I think that farmer’s markets say ‘community’ and that’s real important, an opportunity to meet other people in your community,” Higgins said.
Higgins said farmer’s markets provide the chance to go back to the localized style of purchasing food.
“I think that getting back to basics with our food and things like that, and getting away from things that have chemicals added to them is important,” Higgins said. “A farmer’s market can do that.”