Since the fall of 2014, FMC Senior Researcher Darlene Wolnik and Executive Director Jen Cheek have been collaborating with Erin Buckwalter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) to assist the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS) at the Vermont Law School on a national farmers market legal toolkit.
This four year project, funded through the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), is meant to help navigate some of the complex legal issues involved in starting and running farmers markets. The project focuses on three key areas: governance/business structure (researched in Year 1), EBT/SNAP issues ( Year 2), and general liability & risk management (underway in 2016).
The ensuing resources will be organized on a new website hosted by CAFS, scheduled to be live by the end of 2017. The toolkit will offer a cross section of resources that should mitigate the risks of operating a market through detailed research papers, examples of appropriate language for documents, downloadable checklists, and case studies of markets from around the country.
With the assistance of the FMC and NOFA-VT project team, law students under the direction of Jamie Renner, Assistant Professor of Law and Supervisor of the CAFS Food & Agriculture Clinic have done successive rounds of interviews with dozens of market leaders to uncover the most pressing issues markets currently face. Many of the market organizations interviewed have since offered their templates or redacted documents to be added to the Legal Toolkit.
Read more at the Farmers Market Coalition






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"Tweeting Growers"
Top 5 -yesterday
- Heritage Farms' new greenhouses enter second season, with new growers?
- Pure Harvest to build more indoor farms in Saudi Arabia
- Why irrigation and nutrients should be well distributed in substrate bags
- A more natural form of artificial lighting with an LED pulse technology system
- Paper packaging solution now also available as banderole
Top 5 -last week
- Combining vertical farming and greenhouse horticulture to decentralize lettuce production
- Fresh produce chain hit by Lakeside Produce’s bankruptcy
- Growy acquires assets and team of Kalera International (&ever)
- Positive vibes on the first day of IPM '23
- CAN: Land Betterment acquires 50% ownership in greenhouse operations
Top 5 -last month
- How farmers are cutting out supermarkets
- Combining vertical farming and greenhouse horticulture to decentralize lettuce production
- Higher light transmission and lower heat demand with double foil greenhouse
- Fresh produce chain hit by Lakeside Produce’s bankruptcy
- 30MHz declared bankrupt, curator 'optimistic about restart'
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Other news in this sector:
- 2023-01-31 Teaching self-sustainability to schools and communities across South Africa
- 2023-01-31 Despite challenging 2022, Serbian fruit exports are increasing
- 2023-01-31 UK: Plans for more soft fruit polytunnels at a Colworth farm are resubmitted
- 2023-01-31 More than 5,000 tons of tomato arrived in Russia from Turkmenistan since the start of '23
- 2023-01-31 France is preparing a law allowing the industry to better negotiate with retailers
- 2023-01-31 Rising temperature complicates the flowering of peppers in Morocco
- 2023-01-31 Cucumber season expected to end two to three weeks earlier
- 2023-01-31 Spanish zucchini exports decrease by almost 22% while purchases of Moroccan zucchini increased by more than 33%
- 2023-01-31 Mint is seeing an interesting pickup in demand
- 2023-01-30 French imported lettuce price rises slightly
- 2023-01-30 Cultivating urban farming in Malaysia
- 2023-01-27 Sub-zero frosts harm Murcia crops
- 2023-01-27 Greenhouse horticulture goes for people-oriented employment
- 2023-01-27 Increased energy costs hit winter production of cucumbers on the northern hemisphere hard
- 2023-01-27 Italy exports approximately 60% of its tomatoes to the US every year
- 2023-01-27 New white strawberry variety targets year-round supply
- 2023-01-27 Higher cucumber pricing reflects lessened supply and inflated costs
- 2023-01-26 UK cucumber growers won't plant until late February or March
- 2023-01-26 Prices of tomatoes skyrocket at Koyambedu market in Chennai
- 2023-01-26 Qatar produces more vegetables than it needs