The indoor winter version of the Boone (N.C.) Winter Farmers Market has decided to reopen – outdoors.
Boone, N.C. and it’s summer Watauga Farmers Market has grown in popularity each year as a destination for locals and others to shop for fresh produce and locally made crafts. To balance the uncomfortableness of cold weather, the market was reinvented as the Boone Winters Farmers Market by moving indoors December through April into the cramped exhibition hall of the Watauga County / North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.
COVID-19 restrictions have made the current presentation untenable but the leadership of well-informed market managers and town and county leaders has provided the opportunity of an outdoor market. Local farmers without the usual buyers of restaurants, bakeries, and others have left them shell shocked with the loss of income.
Against the Grain, a USDA certified organic farm in Zionville, was present and with their own self imposed protocols. Customers could not touch the produce, only one customer could be in the measured six-foot “storefront”, customers bagged their own purchases from a defined area of the store’s table, money transactions were managed by only one employee, all their employees used respiratory barriers. Customers exited with total confidence that infection control measures were maximized. This in itself was a reliability boost for the farm and its brand.
Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture, the manager and sponsor for this event, used an army of volunteers, officers, and interns to direct the conformance AND the exceeding of CORVID-19 guidelines. They are to be commended.
Is this model sustainable? That remains to be seen. Everyone is looking forward to the return of “normal” times.
