Market Manager Relationships & Financial Incentives in D.C. Farmers’ Market Spaces
Interviewer(s): Interviewer
Interviewee(s): Respondent

Interviewer: So I guess if you want to start where you did, kind of with your background at market and how long you’ve been doing this sort of thing? That’d be awesome.

Respondent: Yea, so I got involved at the farmer’s market at Langley Park when I was in college so um, eight or nine years ago. And that one is in the Langley Park area of Maryland so it’s right outside of DC; ninety percent of the population there was using an incentive program – so SNAP, WIC, or Senior benefits – mostly Spanish speaking, some Ethiopian population there too. But yea I would say ninety percent were using their incentives so we had a matching program there; it was actually the first market in the state of Maryland to have a matching program of any amount. So some markets as you probably know cap their match at fifteen dollars but the Crossroads market is just unlimited. Which did pose some issues, like usually around September or October we were usually scrambling to fundraise and get donations to keep the program afloat. Um. Whereas at the Petworth market, the neighborhood here is much different. I’m getting ahead of myself – let me backtrack. I started at that market in Langley park, but I was also interested in food justice and food access and that market is really targeting a population that doesn’t have access to food.

Interviewer: Yea, actually one of the markets I volunteered with in the Fall, um, the woman who was hired seasonally by FRESHFARM had also worked at Crossroads.

Respondent: Oh! Who was it?

Interviewer: Do you know Carrie?

Respondent: Yes! Oh that’s so fun. Oh cool.

Interviewer: She was so wonderful. So yes, she told me a lot about Crossroads.

Respondent: Oh that’s so great, so you already know a lot about the Maryland market.

Interviewer: A little bit

Respondent: So yea after Crossroads I got involved part time at the Petworth market, which I think I mentioned is very different. This neighborhood has really gentrified in the past few years. So there is still a really large population of Spanish speakers, older people who have benefits. I don’t know that we do as good of a job of reaching them as we could. In fact I know – I can say with certainty that we don’t.

Interviewer: And how can you say that, how do you know?

Respondent: I think, I think based on information I have about people going to Mary’s Center and other clinics. That I know there are people that are getting SNAP and WIC but, um, ww don’t have a lot of SNAP or WIC customers at market. Yea, the average match that we do on a market Saturday is – and this is excluding Produce Plus – is like $80 in matching.

Interviewer: Okay

Respondent: For you know WIC alone, and SNAP not that much. So I know that we are not reaching people as well as we could but this neighborhood is also now largely wealthy, white, young families who come to our market for stuff like pickles and expensive meats and cookie dough and expensive stuff.

Interviewer: Yea, so what do you think the relationship is there?

Respondent: You mean like on the different communities that are at our market?

Interviewer: Yea

Respondent: Yea 100%, I think its easy enough for people in this area to get over to Columbia Heights farmer’s market and even the one on 14th and Kennedy. So um, I think anecdotally incentive customers feel more comfortable going to our one vendor to speak Spanish – at Crossroads we spoke Spanish, we all spoke Spanish – and at Petworth, there’s one vendor who speaks Spanish and he does all of the SNAP and WIC matching because people feel comfortable talking to him and buying his stuff. So I think especially when Produce Plus is happening, I can tell based on the Produce Plus data where people go. Which two markets they go to per week, and a lot of our customers are also going to Columbia Heights. I’m not saying it’s like um, you know a direct correlation but I think..

Interviewer: Yea

Respondent: Since we don’t – since we aren’t targeting those customers they probably aren’t able to afford our offerings they don’t always shop at our market.

Interviewer: Yea and I guess I’m thinking too about the kind of space that creates, like, yea the space created at Crossroads versus at this market where people are coming for pickles and meat. That’s just an interesting..

Respondent: Yea, I know and it’s hard because we want the market to be successful and the volunteer corps who runs it are mostly people who moved here in the past five to ten years and so I think there’s probably interests that are you know not aligned with people in the community. Like they want…you know, the market board wants to bring in like Shrub District who are selling little shrub mixes and like expensive chocolate bars and stuff. And. I get it.. like I get it, we want a successful marketplace, but I also… it also hurts my heart a little bit because I want to have a local papusa lady, and affordable foods for people. It’s just hard. Especially with produce plus. People have all these checks to spend and they’re not always spending them with Petworth. As you know people go elsewhere with their checks. So it’s hard. Crossroads is very intentional about creating that space where everyone feels welcome even when there are sort of pricey things, like organic farms and stuff. But. Yea. We make a ton of money from the rich white people here but there are a lot of people who need, I mean not that they’re more important, but there needs are more urgent. So, it’s hard.

Interviewer: And what do interactions with customers who are either receiving Produce Plus, or – I guess that’s the only one at Petworth right? Do you match?

Respondent: Yup, we match SNAP, WIC and Senior benefits too. Yup.

Interviewer: Cool

Respondent: And our match isup to $20 which is pretty good.

Interviewer: Great, yea, so what do those interactions look like? Is it a transaction or is it a “stop and chat” or what does it look like?

Respondent: I’m a very relational person; I make those into a stop and chat, especially if people have kids. I want, especially Spanish speakers and people who are getting a match, I want them to feel comfortable at market. I cant. I can imagine how it might feel because it mostly is white people with babies, so for me I want to stop and chat. Even with Produce Plus when there’s a big line and people are in a rush, there are people who are regulars and I see them every week so I love chatting with them. And my favorite customer interactions are where people don’t know that we will match, like they are coming for produce plus and then they find out we’ll match or they’re coming for the match and they don’t know about produce plus. And I’m like, “hey theres this awesome program, it’s free, let me sign you up.” It makes a huge difference, people are excited and it makes them want to come to market. So they’re like – as much I’m saying we do a shit job we also do a pretty okay job at getting people in because you know, I’m very intentional about making people feel comfortable and welcome.

Interviewer: And it seems like once they’re there maybe there is something you can do to help create this safe space?

Respondent: Right, yea.

Interviewer: Do you have like an instance or a memory – and this is extremely anecdotal – yea I’m looking for stories of like a particular interaction that you had that you really, that was memorable to you?

Respondent: Yea! [excitement] Yea, there was this mom, and she came probably like late summer with her son. So Produce Plus was sort of on the way out but she came by and I had never seen her before. And she looked, I mean you can tell when it’s someone’s first time. She looked a little lost; I told her about the match. Blew her mind. And then I told her about produce plus and she was like, “I’ve lived on this street forever but I’ve never actually come over.. This is awesome.” And I was like, “YES. Welcome to the market!” And people always laugh when I say welcome to the market but for real, welcome to the market. So she came every week after that. Even when Produce Plus ended – which was a huge deal – we wanted to see “what does that do? What does that mean?” For some markets that meant that almost all of their customers were gone. And she kept coming, she was delightful and I was so happy to see her. Yea, and I can remember another few instances this last season like that, but this one really stuck with me.

Interviewer: Good, that’s awesome.

Respondent: Yea that does happen and that’s exciting.

Interviewer: And what, I guess what are some of the things you’ve found really important in those interactions you’ve had? Either in your conversations, or the physical transactions, or manning the lines for produce plus, what are some of the like tools that you used during market to make that all happen?

Respondent: That’s a good question. Well I think speaking Spanish is a huge piece. Um. And I think like the way that you talk about incentive programs matters. Like, there’s only so much that I can do as someone who is a stranger who – I don’t know what it feels like to use assistance for food but I think that the more you can talk to someone like they’re a human being and not like a transactional thing. Making sure that you’re explaining in a way you would to someone else, so that it’s not patronizing, the better your interaction will be. I think, I think it has helped for me to adopt a more casual way of speaking. Um. Just because like no one likes someone else explaining down to them, especially something they know more about than I do. I think that like in general I tend to keep sort of like the beauracratic chattiness about benefits and stuff to a minimum and I’m just like, “hey, if you have SNAP or WIC you can you know, we’ll match blah blah blah.” I think like your tone of voice and the way you interact makes a difference. Speaking Spanish.

Interviewer: And why do you think the speaking Spanish is particularly helpful?

Respondent: Well people feel comfortable when someone speaks their language, and those interactions I don’t – you know whenever – I’m not fluent in the language and that’s awkward. And they don’t feel like they can be helped, I don’t feel like I’m fully communicating so like I imagine, much like it felt like to me when I was abroad and needed someone to speak English to me it was so comforting when I found someone to speak English. So. Yea I think it’s a probably a comfort thing. If I were to guess.

Interviewer: Okay, cool.

Respondent: Yea

Interviewer: Cool cool. So, I know from other people that I’ve interviewed that there seems to be a tension between what you’re saying – yea, having those conversations and creating that comfortable space – and manning a Produce Plus line that is long, or an info table line that is long, or yea farmers have needs um. And so, yea how – do you have tools you use in balancing those demands?

Respondent: Yea we’re lucky to have a volunteer whose always at the table with us and an assistant market manager that started at the end of the season. And fortunately we didn’t have the lines that other markets had. I’ve heard the terrible nightmare stories of…

Interviewer: Me too [laughs]

Respondent: [laughs] we were fortunate, we never had those crazy lines um but I gave people chairs to sit in while they waited and water and stuff and especially people who were waiting there before market, me or the other market manager would go and chat and see – if they were in the Produce Plus line but needed SNAP or WIC we would get them out of that line so I think, again we were lucky so that it wasn’t crazy, we could check in and talk to people.

Interviewer: And do you feel like, your ability was impacted by having staff or by having like yea I don’t know what other factors you could think of.

Respondent: Yea, it was hard don’t get me wrong. As soon as market started and all those transactions started to happen none of us could leave the table and that was hard because other vendors need things, people have questions, stuff’s going on in the market, but we couldn’t leave or we could but then people have to wait. Yea that was stressful and I think we only kind of got by because we had extra staff to help. And some people were really fine to wait and they were patient but it was a mixed bag to be honest. Some days it was fine, some days not – when it was hot especially – yea.

Interviewer: So this is a good segue, I want to talk a little bit. I also want to talk about the farmer-producer side of things. I want to talk a bit about how relationships look there with these incentives. Yea, can you think of – well I guess it’s easier to start this way, are there specific like strengths or challenges that working with those producers and farmers around these programs that you’ve experiences?

Respondent: Yea, in fact one of the vendors was just emailing me earlier. She wants to set up a focus group to see what customers are not seeing or what they really want at market because I think - For some vendors they don’t know how, or they don’t know what they’re doing wrong that’s not getting more people who are using incentives to come to their tent. I mean if i were to guess I would say that it seems like it’s a matter of the cost but I think, so I think if I were to pull out like a chief conversational piece about vendors and incentive programs it would be “people aren’t using them a ton, except with the big produce people at the end.” Um. And so that them trying ot just figure out how they can get more people involved with SNAP or WIC.

Interviewer: Yea nad what is that feeling that you see with the vendor there, is it confusion is it worry that they weren’t going to get the benefit too? What have you discussed around that?

Respondent: I think. Well I think that at least in this vendor who wants to have a focus group, she is a new farmer and is new to our market and I think really intrinsically wants to connect with the community and wants to know what she can do differently to meet these needs. Ike it seems less motivated just financially, I mean of course it is to some extend but especially because she used to go to Crossroads, it seems like she wants to meet the community’s needs however she can. And it has come up for few other vendors, we have a group that um shares a U shaped booth. Like a bunch of different farmers to split the cost and they don’t actually get a lot of customers really in general. And to me it feels more like the space is intimidating but to them, they’re also confused why the incentives aren’t being used when they’re mostly farmers of color and women. But yea, I think it’s motivated more out of a place of wanting to give people what they want.

Interviewer: Yea, okay. And you kind of already said an experience that is related to a specific farmer that you have interacted with about this program and the focus group. How do you respond to that? How does that relationship look with that farmer?

Respondent: Like my personal one with her?

Interviewer: Yea, either at market or like if you talk outside of market or like how, yea.

Respondent: Yea. Um. It’s, so when I emailed her back I was like, “I would love to make this happen, let me check in with the market board president and see if we can send an email out to our liserve –lets see what we can do to market that happen.” So I think with some vendors who are really proactive and come to me with their thoughts and questions we have strong relationships.

Interviewer: And what does that mean?

Respondent: to me?

Interviewer: That you have strong relationships, yea?

Respondent: I think that they feel comfortable sharing their ideas with me, I feel like I can be you know candid in how I think things might go or what my thoughts are. If we can do a thing or if we can’t do a thing. It’s a small enough market that like there isn’t you know any, um, drama or like inter-vendor competition or stuff like that. So, so yea, I think that I feel like I have a positive relationship with vendors. I think because I’m part time I don’t get to check in as often as I’d like we did a vendor survey at the end of the market and a handful got that back, maybe four or five, but yea I think there are a few instances like this vendor and another one that’s in that shared booth who email me frequently to be like, “this is what I think about this, this is what I think about this.” And that’s fine.

Interviewer: Great. Um. Let me look at this sheet real quickly [laughs]. We’ve really run through it. [pause] Yea so I guess like beyond the financial incentives with farmers and producers, you kind of described what those interactions look like a little bit. How does a regular market day look for you in terms with who you’re interacting with? How that time is spent?

Respondent: So it looks a little different now that there are two market managers which is useful. Prior to that it was just one, it was just me, so I would get there like an hour and a half before market to set up tables, materials, all the tents that we need to be there when vendors get in. Help all the vendors get in their spots, after a few weeks they know where they go anyways. Setting up produce plus, makings sure that the checks are ready and um like the documents for tracking things and uh, after that and before we had another person I would just sort of be stuck at the table for long stretches and couldn’t really check in with vendors until the end of market when I would do accounting stuff. But now we have a second person, it’s so nice, like after we both set up I can go and see if anyone needs anything and chat with people and there’s time to scope out stuff I want to buy later and later I can take a break and talk to vendors and a typical market day now looks nicer and easier to me to like actually chat and engage with people –like check in – which is great. So yea during stuffs happening, stuff is happening at the table, and at the end I’ll go around and ask how everyone’s day went.

Interviewer: everyone, vendors?

Respondent: Yup all the vendors. I’ll ask how they felt about sales and the day, which is a great, it’s a great way to get informal feedback. And yea that’s kind of it. And if there’s some sort of kids or family thing happening, um, there’s often someone from our board has their kids so I can go talk to people and like chat, with other adults which is nice. So sometimes there’s time to talk to customers. But most of my customers happen at the table where I can like chat.

Interviewer: And just since you have such, yea two very differing communities that are utilizing the market, yea what do those customer interactions look like? Are there interactions? I don’t know.

Respondent: Yea they’re very different. People who are not matching don’t usually stop by the table because they don’t usually have reason to. So you can come to the table if you don’t have cash, you can come get tokens, but most of our vendors take cards. Um. So those interactions are pretty infrequent. I don’t really see anyone that’s not done matching unless they come to get $100 in tokens.

Interviewer: Yea, but in that space, a customer comes and gets their SNAP match and they go to the Produce vendor and are standing next to someone who maybe has $100 in cash on them – is there interactions that happen there?

Respondent: I’ve never seen a negative interaction; I don’t know…I’m sure that they happen. Maybe, I don’t know. I think people stay in their own sort of bubbles. I don’t know; Ive never really taken note. Like I never see any sort of non-neutral interaction happen

Interviewer: The reason I ask is that, in response to a few other interviews I’ve done, the idea that like uh you can be a mitigator in that space if you would need to be. If that conflict does happen. But if there is no reason to be in that role or to mitigate then there’s no reason.

Respondent: Yea, I mean an instance like that that I can think of is a frequent patron who was apparently stealing stuff for a long time. For many weeks. And, um. The vendor and I never said anything, he was just sort of like, “it’s fine, whatever.” But then it was happening one day and another patron came to me and she said, “do you have any police here, somebody’s stealing stuff.” Um. But I don’t know that that sort of behavior is like judged. That sort of telling on behavior, I don’t know that it’s unique to Petworth. That definitely happened at Crossroads, where someone would steal something off of the – off the table. So I don’t know that there’s like a profiling thing happening. But yea I’ve never seen a negative interaction; I think people are just at the market buying their stuff and not really taking notice, for better or for worse, of other people who aren’t like their kids and their dog.

Interviewer: Yea [laughs]. It’s very fun that that’s at this market.

Respondent: There are so many dogs. So many kids.

Interviewer: incredible! Okay, I think those are the big things that I kind of wanted to hit on, is there anything else that you like think is super important for me to know about interactions at market – with your team, with customers, with vendors?

Respondent: [pause] Um. Yea I think I would be interested to know how this plays out for other people. I think that like a main source of frustration for me as a market manager is that – any big decisions that happen have to be approved by the board first.

Interviewer: And what qualifies as like a big decision?

Respondent: Um. Like moving the location of the musicians to a different area of the market. Or like…the type of musicians we have or, um, what else.

Interviewer: vendors?

Respondent: Yea all of the vendors are voted on by the board, that’s also a thing. I cant think of others off of the top of my head. But essentially like most feedback that’s given to me by vendors, unless it’s something that requires me to make a decision in the moment, I have to bring it to the board first. And they have to talk about it before it can be okay… like even having a recycling bin at the market, I have to ask the board first. And I get it, but I feel like I’m in a difficult position with the vendors. They’ll be like, “oh this is an easy thing.” And I’m like, “I totally agree.” And sometimes, to be honest, I just make those calls on my own because I don’t have time to wait for our once a month meeting to approve something and then implement it. So sometimes I do just take matters into my own hands. Not often, but, anyways. Those sort of larger things about the market space, um, I don’t like that I have to say to vendors, “I’ll get back to you,” essentially. And I don’t know how that works at other markets. Especially like the bigger FRSHFARMS ones and stuff. But that is a challenge I face.

Interviewer: Yea, sometimes you might just want a recycling bin.

Respondent: Exactly. Sometimes I just want to say, like yes, run this extension cord here. [pause] I think that’s maybe it?

Interviewer: Okay.

Respondent: Um. That said, the board is a nice aspect of this smaller independent market because I can propose something like increasing our match from 20 to 15 and it’s pretty simple, they can just vote yes, there’s not like a lot of channels that an idea has to go through first. So that’s useful. Um. Yea I think the…another thing I noticed when I went to a DC greens meeting with other market managers, is that, I think to other people who do this full time job – do people do this full time? Is this their job? I think it is, so, it feels hard for me sometimes to stay on top of things. From vendors and customers both, on a day to day basis. That’s hard.

Interviewer: Yea I definitely think there are lots of seasonal and part time and staff, but I think big markets – especially like huge market organizations – have some full time staff that can be at every market and do an administrative work. That’s an additional thing that you often have to do. You have to track all that SNAP data.

Respondent: Right. Yea. It’s a lot of work.

Interviewer: It is.

Respondent: I think those are all my thoughts.

Okay, thank you for your time.