This week, the Brookings Farmers Market — like thousands of others across America — is celebrating National Farmers Market Week. The local market runs Saturday mornings from May through October, located between the courthouse and the library.

“The farmers market has more than just vegetables,” Kirsten Gjesdahl, executive director of Downtown Brookings, said. “It has artisan products, it has really delicious bread, there’s a coffee vendor so you can come and get your morning cup of coffee. We have people making cotton candy, and crepes, and honey and beautiful bouquets of flowers. So it’s more than just a trip to the grocery store.”

The current incarnation of the local market was founded in 1997. Following a successful trial run last year, the market is now officially under the umbrella of the Downtown Brookings organization.

“When the market is taking place, there is an increase in traffic downtown,” Gjesdahl said. “Our restaurants and retail have all noted that the farmers market does bring people to our downtown.”

Starting this year, the farmers market accepts SNAP payments. People can use their EBT cards at a coordinator’s booth to obtain tokens to spend on food; the vendors redeem those tokens for cash at the end of the day.

“The farmers are fair,” Gjesdal said. “What they’re asking for their veggies isn’t based on some corporate office. It’s based on them with their calculator sitting in their desk at their house.”

The local vendors agree.

“The prices are better for us. The prices are probably better for the customer as well,” Kyle Haroldson with Haroldson Farms said. “My work — it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of physical work. We’re out in the field, we’re out in the elements doing hard work all week. If you come and see me at the farmers market, I’m there working my butt off and sweating away. But for me, it seems easier than working out in the field. You’re selling your product, and you’re seeing the whole cycle of growing it, and all the things that went into it, and then giving it to the people and making some money for it — and then, hopefully them enjoying it with their family.”

The vendors see themselves as family.

“I like seeing other vendors,” Jennifer Pederson with Little Prairie Coffee Company said. “There’s a lot of the time that we’ll take fresh vegetables home for the week, or we’ll take bread home from other vendors at the farmers market, because we’re all there together. We set up together. We tear down together. I enjoy doing my job. I enjoy being a barista and making good coffee and interacting with my customers. But you know at the same time, I just enjoy being at the farmers market and seeing what everybody else has to offer.”

Interacting with both new and familiar faces has resonated with vendors.

“My favorite thing right now is watching our young customers with young families, and watching their kids just kind of grow. That’s fun to kind of be involved in everyone’s life a little bit. It really feels like a community,” Kalley Besler with Cottleston Bread said. “When we first started (with the farmers market) in 2013, we were in that Moriarty parking lot by the movie theatre — and since then, the market has grown both in space over by the courthouse but also in vendor size as well. We have a ton of interest in people being vendors at the farmers market, and it’s awesome.”

That growth has proven positive for producers and consumers alike.

“It’s a win for farmers, being able to cut out the middleman and being able to sell their product directly to consumers. It’s a win for consumers because they get more consumer choice,” Geb Bastian, SDSU Extension nutrition and health specialist, said. “I wouldn’t say that, you know, eating say a cauliflower from the farmers market is necessarily more nutritious than a cauliflower from the supermarket. It depends on so many factors — but what I will say is that shopping locally, shopping at a farmers market really helps increase access to healthy foods.”

There are more than 8,600 farmers markets registered in the USDA national farmers market directory — up from just under 2,000 in 1994.

“During COVID while grocery stores often had bare shelves, farmers markets actually really boomed during that era. And that’s because … the local food supply was able to pivot based on consumer demand,” Bastion said. “It was also really convenient they were able to be held outside, so there was a lower chance of transmitting COVID.”

The South Dakota Specialty Producers Association lists 48 farmers markets in the state.

“We have this wonderful global food supply chain where we can get whatever we want at any point of the year, but that comes with tremendous costs,” Bastion said. “And so you see something that’s grown in one country — it’s shipped halfway across the world to get processed and packaged, and then it’s shipped to the U.S. or wherever to end up on a consumer plate.”

According to the nonprofit Farmers Market Coalition, more than 85% of farmers market vendors travel less than 50 miles to participate; and more than half live within 10 miles of their markets.

“People love the fact that they can go, and they’re supporting somebody that they know — who lives in their community, who they go to church with,” Bastion said. “You can talk to the farmer and talk about, you know — was this grown organically, what type of pesticide management they do. A lot of farmers are very forthcoming about all of that. And so, you get a more intimate knowledge of where your food’s coming from.”

The National Farmers Union reports that producers receive 14.3 cents of each consumer dollar spent on food in America — and more than 80 cents of each dollar goes to processing, distribution, wholesaling, and marketing rather than on-the-farm costs.

“A lot of farmers who choose to use a farmers market or other direct-to-consumer method, they’re able to cut out that middleman,” Bastion said. “Rather than having money go to big corporations — buying these foods that come from all the way across the world — it’s keeping that money directly in the community.”

It’s a win-win that seems popular even across political divides. Since 1999, the Ag Secretary has proclaimed the first week of August National Farmers Market Week. This year, for the first time, the House and Senate passed bipartisan resolutions declaring their support as well.

“Everyone is so happy,” Gjesdal said. “They come there because they like the environment, they like the people, there’s just an energy and a joy that’s at the farmers market that I don’t think is anywhere else.”

Email Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.