“We like what happens socially at the farmer’s market, which is quickly emerging as the new public square in this country. If you compare what happens in the aisles at the grocery store with the farmer’s market, think about what a world of difference that is. At the farmer’s market country meets city. Children are introduced to where their food comes from. People politic. They have petitions. They schmooze. It’s an incredibly vibrant space.”

– Michael Pollan, 2006, journalist and author

Entering its 16th year, the Downtown Farmers’ Market in Salt Lake City will once again remind Utahns of the richly satisfying expressions of why food is so central to our identities and to our relationships with each other and with nature.

The market – the largest ever – will occupy a recently renovated Pioneer Park when it opens June 14 at 8 a.m. The new park promenade certainly will improve the logistics of crowd movement, especially for those who use wheelchairs, carts, and strollers. The market, organized by the Salt Lake Downtown Alliance, also will be more readily accessible, including two new TRAX light-rail stations within easy walking distance of the park as well as a bike valet service and parking in the nearby Ford Center garage.

Also, for the first time, fresh produce vendors will be able to accept electronic EBT cards from customers enrolled in food stamp programs. Visitors also will be encouraged to bring their own reusable bags to the market in an effort to minimize the impact of plastic bags and other throw-away items.

Utah-based farmers have benefited greatly from the market’s continuously expanding popularity, according to Kim Angeli, special events director for the alliance and market manager. For many, the market has become a proving ground for diversifying their business models and for opening business channels that may have been difficult to reach previously. Angeli cites the example of Morgan Valley Lamb, now a highly visible product in Utah’s best grocery stores and restaurants which has changed the consumer’s perspective about lamb, making it a welcome entrée on the menu.

Restaurant owners and chefs regularly visit the market for fresh seasonal items, including those running such downtown favorites as the Tin Angel Café and the Sage’s Café.

Others have enjoyed similar success as well. Rico Mexican Market and Catering, which joined the market more than a decade ago, has grown significantly, today distributing its fresh products in grocery stores and establishing a highly active catering business. Bell Organics has moved to becoming an exclusive supplier of fresh produce for local restaurants.

At least ten new growers join the more than 70 farmers who will be part of this year’s market. “We know that some farmers get one-third of their annual sales revenue from the downtown market,” Angeli reports. Sales are healthy as indicated back in an April blog post concerning the feasibility of opening a year-round public market: an estimated $4 million in the 20 weeks the market operates. There also are unconfirmed reports that produce sales for a major downtown grocer drop by as much as 40 percent during the farmer’s market season.

There also will be five new local prepared food vendors joining the already diverse core of breakfast and lunch treats. These include Amal Wa Salam featuring Jordanian cuisine, Sushiya offering a variety of vegetable-based sushi rolls and salads, Blue Star Juice making a variety of carrot juice blends, EC Eats taking seasonal fresh produce each week to create a menu of breakfast foods including Eggs Benedict, and Rising Lotus serving Indian cuisine.

Burningham Fruits will be offering ready-to-eat pies on site as well. Using freshly baked crusts, vendors will fill pies with freshly cut fruit and whipped cream. Other new food vendors include a ranch which specializes in grass-fed beef and Millcreek Herbs.

Angeli also emphasizes the educational outreach that has heightened the market’s importance among consumers who are increasingly concerned about the viability of local business owners and mass-produced foods whose qualities have been dramatically thinned out by simplistic, reductive and synthetic industry practices. Consumers are learning to reconnect with growers, she explains, adding that they begin to understand why certain fresh fruits and vegetables are available only during specific times of the growing season.

Among the 2008 events will be regular free, public cooking demonstrations coordinated by the Art Institute of Salt Lake City’s international culinary school and sessions by master gardeners offering tips on how to cultivate and grow herbs and plants along with wise water management practices. The Slow Food Convivium of Utah also will conduct tours of fresh produce vendors, providing tips on using fresh ingredients in home cooking. An October event will showcase arts and food activities for kids.

The alliance also will hold its annual chef’s competition in September, once again styled on the popular Iron Chef contests seen regularly on the Food Network. Local First Utah will sponsor a competition in which chefs will be paired with local celebrities.The central plaza will be the site of weekly band performances between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., along with the usual corps of buskers. Other events will include a City Library book sale, a celebration of Pacific Islander culture, and the annual pumpkin festival. Featured themed activities will be announced throughout the market season here. The market ends in October.

However, it is important to remember that fresh food – vibrant in color, crisp in texture, and genuine in its promise of nutritional value – frames the core of the market. As Pollan noted in 2006 at the Bioneers conference, the farmer’s market is the important first place of grassroots participation that leads potentially to larger scale transformative change in the sphere of public policy:

“We have to act as consumer-citizens who are co-creators, builders of food chains. We are building a local food economy simply by getting out of the supermarket, by growing our own food, by joining the CSA and by shopping at farmers markets. We are voting with our forks and it is a very important vote.

“We also need to vote with our votes because not all the changes we need can be driven by consumers. Some of them will have to come from government.”