Yesterday I read and then heard that the outdoor Farmers’ Market was being closed down. But the indoors grocery stores remain open. I’m confused. Wouldn’t a well-ventilated, outdoors Farmers’ Market be more “safe” than an enclosed space (Redners/Acme)?
In fact, I believe that we need fresh food from our local farmers now more than ever as we all endeavor to keep our bodies healthy.
do not like to point out a problem without offering solutions to ponder, so here goes:
* Have Farmers’ Market on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. With multiple days spread out, perhaps certain vendors will only come one of the three days.
* I would suggest that only vendors selling food participate.
* If the narrow pathways of Fountain Park cause concern, block off the parking lot outside of Emmanuel Church and/or Lawyers’ Row and set the weekday markets up there. There is more than enough space in these locations to provide sufficient “social distancing”.
* In the event that the above suggestions do not work, perhaps post the individual vendors’ email on all town-related sites, so we can contact the vendors directly to order food.
In these recent days when we are all sequestering ourselves at home, it is novel and easy. After a while, this isolation will NOT be novel and easy. People are going to get testy and disagreeable. There needs to be a way for people to feel a safe, sense of community to keep us feeling human. Offering an outdoors Farmers’ Market in town will give a sense of normalcy that is so necessary. And consuming healthy, fresh, local produce will only increase the strength of our immune systems.
Thank you for your consideration of my concerns and suggestions during these stressful and uncertain times.
Shelby T. Strudwick
Sally Borghardt says
I thoroughly endorse Ms. Strudwick’s point of view and suggestions. Please reconsider reopening the Chestertown’s Farmer’s Market with consideration given to Social distance parameters
David Atlas says
Limiting personal activity may be a valid method to suppress the rate of infection in order to prevent nationwide meltdown of our healthcare system in the coming weeks. Food is a necessity and the risk of buying food at the farmers market can’t be greater than at the regular food store. We should be allowed to choose our risks in terms of necessities. Supporting our local sources makes good sense too.
Please support keeping the farmer’s market open while reducing needless risks using common sense.
Maria Wood says
I am so grateful to the town for making the decision to temporarily close the Farmer’s Market. Any other course of action would be dangerously irresponsible.
The Farmer’s Market is a time-limited event, meaning in order to use it people congregate at the market all together. Expanding the hours or days available would not significantly alter this fact. It’s unrealistic to imagine shoppers will be able to maintain a healthy distance of 6′ between each other and vendors at all times.
The Farmer’s Market, with many vendors, requires many points of purchase, each one multiplying the direct contact needed to buy food.
Having multiple vendors operating at once makes it that much harder to monitor safety protocols, and ensure that everyone is following best practices.
Centralized grocery stores also pose risks. But Farmer’s Market vendors need to spend the bulk of their time actually producing their products, not selling them, after all, so grocery stores can be open far more hours each week than the Farmer’s Market could ever hope to be, meaning there can be fewer people shopping at any one time.
Grocery store workers—who are also heroes, working day after day to keep us fed—can clean and disinfect throughout each day, and management can implement and enforce policies to ensure proper cleaning and safety protocols are followed.
I agree that healthy eating is more important than ever at this time, and so is supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs. And I really love the Farmer’s Market. But to run it during this emergency would be worse than reckless. There is no doubt whatsoever that it would be a central vector of transmission for the coronavirus.
Stores such as Chestertown Natural Foods, the new Guernsey Depot, the Fresh Market in Rock Hall, Cross Street in Galena, and others, carry healthy local food, often from the same vendors as the Farmer’s Market, with the same less-risky advantages of longer hours and lower crowd density, single point of purchase, and streamlined cleaning capability as Acme and Rednor’s.
Yes, it’s hard, and boring, and scary, and inconvenient, and people will be getting irritable and cranky, and our lives are constrained beyond anything we could have pictured even a week ago. Not only that, it will get worse. But there are confirmed cases of coronavirus now in every adjacent county to Kent. There are certainly unconfirmed and unknown cases here, too, and it can be only a matter of a very short time before confirmed cases are reported. The experts in epidemiology and the people on the front lines in places ahead of us in the gruesome timeline of this pandemic are begging us to take measures as drastic and extreme as possible to flatten the curve, slow the spread, and reduce the damage. Without hyperbole, this is truly a matter of life and death, and thankfully our town leaders have stepped up to make the right decision.
Marie Treiber says
I agree wholeheartedly. I was very surprised that the farmer’s market was closed down, when other farmer’s markets across the state are being deemed “essential”. the Takoma Park farmer’s market is open. I also agree it would be better for shopping outdoors and limiting it to only food vendors.
Ed Hugler says
This is a smart suggestion.
Steven Mitchell says
The Maryland Department of Agriculture agrees that farmers markets should stay open. Also a poll on Nextdoor Chestertown shows that a majority of Chestertown residents agree that the market should reopen.
https://news.maryland.gov/mda/press-release/2020/03/19/farmers-markets-should-continue-operations-during-state-of-emergency/
Ruth Wehden says
Returning home the first week of March, I was looking forward to getting stocked on essentials like tissues, laundry detergent, TP, etc. and then planning on doing all my fresh food shopping at the Farmer’s Market. Fresh food, handled significantly less than in the grocery store, fewer hard surfaces, and in support of local farmers. Win, win, win. Please consider moving it to Wilmer Park and spread the vendors out so people can distance themselves more easily.
IMHO the Chestertown Farmer’s Market is one of the BEST features of living here.
Steve Klingelhofer says
Very sensible idea. The market is outside, after all.
Margaret C. Jopp says
I just heard a farmer near Preston is a box of food for $25.00
Perhaps the way food is distributed could be handled at the Farmers Market deal with social distancing.
Beryl Smith says
Please keep the farmer’s market open and functioning. The suggestion of spacing out the time and vendors is sensible and worth considering, but any consideration that would keep this open is important.