Around here, we understand all the joys and all the challenges inherent in a Mother Daughter Duo business. At Birdie's Batch, Vinnie Cann buys the local fruit and makes the award-winning jams and her daughter Sara Cann bakes the cookies and crostatas that they sell at markets in New York's Hudson Valley. Sara also manages the marketing and media side, or did until a health crisis meant that she had to hand off some things. When current best practices call for storytelling and sharing founders' personalities, how to draw the line between the personal and the public.

This Wednesday, August 26th, more than 100 restaurants around the world will participate in Global Pay What You Can Day. At farmers markets in Southern California, Cheng Fang of Vegan Mirai has sold his vegan sushi since 2022, charging on a pay what you can basis every day. Cheng finds that his model provokes thought, intentionality, sometimes a little hostility, and increases a feeling of community.

Add an annual fundraiser centered around garlic farmers and garlic-infused foods to an already full schedule of 8 weekly farmers markets, and you can see how operations director Kawai Bitto's job stinks. It's just a play on words, of course, one that North Union Farmers Market uses to promote Cleveland's 16-year old (and counting) Garlic Festival. Join us as Kawai tells us the story of the festival and the many ways that North Union celebrates and supports local farmers.

We're talking this season about Telling Our Stories and if there's one place that farmers markets and participants really can control the narrative it's in our email newsletters. These weekly updates remind folks to come to market, update them on special events, new products and what's in season and keep them coming back.

Between National Farmers Market Week happening now and the hazards of eating lettuce, farmers markets are a hot topic and the media has come calling. It's exciting that they want to share our perspectives on things. Still, is all press good press? How do you know who's looking for an authentic story and who's angling for clickbait?

There's a lot of talk about farmers markets right now. We're on the front line of food safety. With big box grocery prices climbing we're now often the better bargain. National Farmers Market Week is upon us. Of course, more attention brings enthusiastic reviews and also clickbait and uninformed experts. So now, more than ever, we need to be speaking up, sharing tales from the tents, and educating our target audience: everyone who eats. 

Celebrating all the things is an easy way to remind ourselves that we have the best (albeit weirdest) job in the world. We work really hard, whether the public knows it or not. So for vendors, farmers and market teams, a little frivolity can go a long way in making people feel recognized and in relieving the pressure that we're under as we monitor regulations, manage conflict and deal with traffic. If we're also cutting a little cake or getting a bouquet handed to us it can really change the day.

Farmers markets do everything they can to bring people to the market to shop. And sometimes we go beyond our grocery store in the street identity to make it more fun to stick around. Programming can mean dancing and demos, crafts and cooking. The best weekly offerings tie into fresh food and benefit our farmers.

Even in the age of AI and digital deliveries, farmers markets are growing. People hunger for personal connection, real food and the quality that only comes from human creativity and craft. In this episode recorded live at the 2026 InTents National Farmers Market Conference, Catt Fields White and author David Sax discuss how markets can leverage the power of analog to retain loyal shoppers and make life better.

Discovering new vendors that fill a need for shoppers at your farmers market is like hitting the jackpot. Finding the market that's the perfect fit for your business and your schedule is every vendor's goal. Communicate clearly and everybody wins. 

The USDA just opened the Local Agricultural Market Program (LAMP) request for proposals and Farmers Market Promotion Program applications are due on June 5th. This funding has been a moving target the last couple of years, with tight deadlines,  slow responses and sometimes sudden terminations to confirmed contracts. Still, the grant amounts are some of the largest available to farmers markets seeking to accomplish big, multi-year projects. 

Kicking off this season of Tent Talk, the farmers market podcast, we're looking back at last month's InTents National Farmers Market Conference. Our theme for this series is Past Tents; Future Tents so today we're recapping what we heard and saw at the tenth annual conference, and thinking about ways we might come back even stronger in 2028.

This episode of Tent Talk is all about the value of state market associations. Featuring Maggie Funkhouser, Director of the North Carolina Farmers Market Network, we discuss how state specific associations create more resilient markets, better market managers, and stronger food systems.

The future of farmers markets starts with surveys. That’s right folks! The National Farmers Market Survey is right around the corner and we’re discussing it in detail on this weeks episode of Tent Talk: The Farmers Market Podcast. Featuring local leader, data enthusiast, and food systems advocate, Amanda Edmonds, we’re digging into everything about one of our industry’s most important and influential surveys.

In this weeks episode of Tent Talk: The Farmers Market Podcast, we’re highlighting opportunities to strengthen your relationships with other farmers market professionals in your region and across the country. From national conferences to local meet ups, we’re covering a range of ways you can engage in-person with the very people whose job is just as weird as yours.

It’s application season at farmers markets across the country! Each year offers a new batch of farmers and entrepreneurs anxious with excitement for the opportunities markets have to offer. But before that 10x10 is popped and in-place, they have to get past one thing: the almighty market application.

Welcome to a new season of Tent Talk, the Farmers Market Podcast. The theme for our next 7 episodes is Grow Where You're Planted, and it's all about using your own resources and the others available to you locally and in the wider farmers market community.