FROM PRODUCER TO CONSUMER
From Producer To Consumer New Jersey Has Made Progress By System of Municipal Markets—Farmers Pleased By A. L. CLARK, Chief, Bureau of Markets, New Jersey State Department of Agriculture OUR...
...We took it up with a good many of the mayors who are here, and with Mr...
...Our women years ago were familiar with such things, they were closer to the farm and garden...
...2. It cannot offer lower prices than retail stores but it establishes prices above which retailers cannot go...
...It hardly seems that this same practice is necessary on New Jersey farms...
...Those market places were common and popular fifty years ago...
...Hackensack has had an average of two farmers two or three times a week but those two farmers were sold out in about ten minutes after they got there, and yet no other farmers ever saw fit to go there with produce...
...Constant study of their operations and reports from those in charge of the" have induced the Bureau of Markets of th" State Department of Agriculture to emphasize certain conclusions...
...Even a haul of ten miles will bruise tender sorts and although theik-actual quality surpasses other tougher kinds, they are not wanted by the trade...
...6. As an educational agency for modern housewives its value cannot be overestimated...
...W have made a summary of some conclusions reached from our work last year and I beg to call them to your attention...
...A retail public market should have strong support insured by the city, nearby farmers and housewives...
...Every pound of perishables used means a pound of staples saved for our soldiers and our allies...
...This is one result,—it is a little side issue but interesting...
...Last spring a number of truck growers from Monmouth and Burlington counties came to us with this thought in their mind: they wanted to know if the back yard garden and school garden campaigns were not going to fill the markets so full of perishables in the summer that the professional truck grower would have trouble in securing profitable prices for his produce...
...It is little wonder that we hear so often the complaints that things don't taste as good as they used to...
...It is a fact though that where cities are closely surrounded by farming territory a certain quantity can be brought, especially by the smaller growers and sold direct to housewives who believe that thrift is a virtue...
...Quick Service Needed...
...They did not want to bother with five cent sales to housewives, so it was necessary to win some of them over...
...Interest of Farmers...
...We found there on Saturday mornings one hundred and twenty-five farmers selling truck to pretty nearly five thousand women direct...
...AGROUP of farmers who had always sold at wholesale in these communities were not at all interested in retail selling...
...4. To give the greatest amount of service a market place should be tinder municipal authority and run in such a way as to pay all expenses but without profit...
...we were not sure whether municipal markets would go in New Jersey...
...1. A public market place affords the mo:-', economical marketing facilities for nearby grown perishables...
...we knew in Pennsylvania they were popular, and wc knew that here in Perth Amboy that sort of market was popular...
...So we went along cautiously and carefully, I think and we advised the putting aside of certain streets or parks or spaces where farmers could come in, and we fonnd out immediately that it was very necessary for the farmers to hare ait interest in this work...
...There is this thought in it— the modern housewife is to be compared with the house wife of fifty years ago...
...It should be started in a humble way and located where the working people can get to it easily...
...DURING the year 1916 such market places e established in sixteen municipalities in New Jersey...
...9. It provides an inducement for thrifty persons to do their shopping personally, pay cash and carry their goods home...
...When the Department of Agriculture was reorganized and we were asked to come down here with the new Bureau of Markets, one line of work we took up was this study of city markets...
...Years ago a housewife knew that Greening apples were good for pie making and Fall Pippins made fine apple sauce and certain kinds of peaches were beat for canning...
...We were absolutely astonished by the enthusiastic way in which the women patronized that Perth Amboy Market and also by the enthusiasm with whicn the farmers around there used the market...
...The Bureau of Markets of the State Department of Agriculture is prepared to cooperate with any municipality in the state in establishing farmer's retail markets...
...Wc «vere not sure of ourselves at all...
...The first day the market opened there every market basket in Elizabeth was bought up, and the number of farmers increased from ten or fifteen a day rjp to around fifty, and another street had to be set aside for hucksters, so the market was a success...
...So we said to ourselves, "If there is anything in this idea of increasing the consumption of summer perishables by getting truck direct from the farm to the consumer, it is up to us to do it...
...This is bound to be the result of ordinary competition...
...A public market place increases the consumption ol pensnabies because the retail prices are actually based upon the supply of them...
...Elizabeth today has a farmer's retail market, but it took a whole lot of time to get any interest among the farmers there in Union county...
...A further study showed, that for ten miles around, a naturally rather poor farming section had been developed and five to twenty-five acre farms were producing profitable crops and giving a good living to scores of families because of the Perth Amboy market...
...Other markets Srere ' established in other cities, and soma i(P»ew to quite large pro-JorUons while otheri re-Jhafned" very small...
...7. It saves transportation...
...Quick distribution is the only way to successfully handle the best class of perishables...
...They had invested in fertilizer and things of that kind and their actual livelihood depended upon good market prices...
...For fifty years the tendency has been growing for consumers to demand greater service and for producers to concentrate their endeavors on production...
...Women in those days were familiar with farm products...
...We have never failed to induce a few farmers to try it out as an experiment -and not one market opened has closed during the growing season...
...farm products were food products to them, but to the modern housewife of today food products are groceries, package goods...
...Many instances have been found where farm products hav< traveled fifty miles and been finally consume within five miles of the place where they we-o produced...
...IT IS necessary for growers in California and Florida to produce varieties that are "good shippers...
...Anderson's assistance, we toolc the matter up with all the municipalities in the state...
...Ou'-experience last year proves that the women < New Jersey will patronize these markets...
...From Producer To Consumer New Jersey Has Made Progress By System of Municipal Markets—Farmers Pleased By A. L. CLARK, Chief, Bureau of Markets, New Jersey State Department of Agriculture OUR interest was aroused here in New Jersey three or four years ago by the Perth Amboy Market...
...This whole business of direct selling is a complicated affair...
...A public market place is a very attractive competitor for other retailers and tends to induce the introduction of the most efficient methods...
...I remember two or three farmers remarking very emphatically that the women of Elizabeth would be ashamed to carry a market basket...
...Plant breeders have turned to helping farmers make money in producing varieties for them that are profitable, and the profitable variety, whether sweet corn, cherry apple or quince, whatever it may be, is the kind that looks good in market...
...Now it is out of the question that any considerable portion of our orchard and garden products be sold at public market places in cities...
...Today, of course, our housewives are not, and what is the result...
...Wholesalers and retailers demand more and more insistently however that their produce look good...
...8. A public market place lowers the cost of nearby grown food crops to consumers and in-c- :ases the prices received by growers...
...5. It is an old time institution for the promotion of thrift and will be supported by cit-housewives during this period of unusual cond.-tions...
...3. Low priced products such as windfall apples, etc., which oftentimes are not worth shipping to distant markets and other crops during periods of low prices which sometimes go to waste on the farms can be profitably sold in a public market place...
...This term means practically that such kinds are tough and strong enough to withstand hard usage and still make a good showing when displayed by the storekeeper...
...Conclusions Are Reached...
Vol. 10 • April 1918 • No. 4
