Farmer's Markets, Ep. 9

Thriving on the Prairie

Jan Stankiewicz 0:06
Hello and welcome to Thriving on the Prairie, a podcast exploring issues concerning families and communities that inspires North Dakota movers, shakers and community difference makers to engage in lifelong learning. I'm Jan Stankiewicz, Community Health and Nutrition Specialist with NDSU Extension. And I'm so excited to have a few guests on today. Farmers markets are an integral part of local food systems and economies across the state. With the short growing season here in North Dakota, people are always on the lookout for those canopies and truck beds set up in parks, or Greenspaces, or parking lots or on the side of the road. Today, I'm chatting with market managers of two farmers markets, Sue Balcom, with Bismarck Farmer's Market and Heidi Ziegenmeyer and Jessica Fish with Spirit Lake Mobile Farmer's Market. So let's just go ahead and jump right in. We'll start with Sue. So thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm so glad you're here today.

Sue Balcom 1:04
I'm delighted to be asked to be with you, Jan.

Jan Stankiewicz 1:09
This is great. So I can just I'm just so excited for our conversation. So let's start with a little bit of background for you. And you in regards to the Bismarck Farmer's Market. Where does all this start? I know you've been involved in local foods and farmer's markets for quite some time. But just tell us a little bit about how it started for you.

Sue Balcom 1:31
Boy, you're not gonna like this, because my history goes back a long ways. You know, sometimes you forget how old you are, and how long you've been on the planet. But when I started in local foods, officially, I didn't even know it was called local foods. And it was about 2008 when I got a job at the Ag Department as the local foods marketing specialist. But the only qualification I think I have for any of the work that I've been doing since then, including the farmer's markets, is that I have lived a local economy. I grew up in a local economy. If it wouldn't have been for gardening, when we lived in Fredonia, we would have probably had a very limited diet. But my mom was an avid gardener. My memories start way back then. And so when I found out that people were didn't know where a potato came from, or didn't know how to garden, or can I was like, What do you mean, like this is craziness. And so getting started in the local foods movement in North Dakota was really exciting. And I remember Roger Johnson, who was the ag commissioner at the time, he said to me, you don't really think Sue is going to get these people to start canning do you. And look at what's happened since then it's really taken off. And so about, oh, I'd say maybe seven years ago, I did research for a book on the German Russian food culture, because I really wanted to know how people gardened, canned, preserved, butchered, stored meat without electricity. Like, how do you bake bread with cow pies? You know, like, how do you regulate an oven? Where do you keep meat in the wintertime? Like, these are questions I really wanted to know. And in the course of all of this research, now, everybody wants to know the answers to these questions. So one of the parts of that whole scenario with the books that I did was the everlasting yeast, which is actually a sourdough starter, and all the ladies had one in their root cellar. So I thought, Oh, this is so fascinating to me, I think I'm gonna start baking bread. And so I started my culture back then. And then I ran into somebody named Diane Schmidt, who had been doing farmer's markets and Mandan. I was one of her customers for 40 years. And she encouraged me to join the farmer's market. And I did. And of course, the rest is history because I've been a street vendor for many years as an artist and this fell right into my, the way I wanted to live my life and how I wanted to make money. And so when our markets kind of like grew and split, I became the market manager for Bismarck Farmer's Market and let me tell you, that's been a real learning experience.

I can imagine I really like how you talk about like the different worlds you know, you live in a world or were raised in a world where local foods wasn't even a term because it was just your lived experience. And then being exposed to or having insight into other people's worlds where it's a completely different experience. So I just really like that you can, you know, local foods allows us to kind of step in and out of that or, or see different ways of of living and experiences that's really interesting.

Jan Stankiewicz 5:00
So Bismarck Farmer's Market that is, of course, in Bismarck. Tell us a little bit about your role as a market manager because I think maybe, maybe some people don't know all of the work that it takes to get markets set up on Market Day.

Sue Balcom 5:18
Heck, I'd probably wouldn't have taken this job had I known how much work it was.

Alright.

First of all, you really, we're really strict. I hate using that word, but we're really committed to being a farmer's market. So one of the things that we require is that the people are actually growing their own vegetables, we don't do any resale. So in order to ensure that we can maintain the integrity of the market, we set ourselves up as a nonprofit corporation each, and that requires paperwork, and lots of paperwork, lots of paperwork, and annual paperwork to it didn't just stop there.

We file every year with the Secretary of State's office under our name, our official name, Bismarck Farmer's Market, and, of course, we are insured because nowadays, you can't do anything without insurance. So as a market, we have insured all of our vendors while they're on the property selling. Finding a place to have a market is sometimes a challenge. You know, we we have such a following now that the parking issue is, is almost overwhelming, like all of the people that are coming to visit the market. But you know, on a daily basis, I get phone calls, inquiring when the market is. I have to do the website updates. I do a Facebook page, we do Facebook posts all the time, not just on Saturdays, our market runs four days a week. So we're doing promos all the time. And then of course, people want to join the market. So who do they call? The market manager? And anytime anybody even has questions about where to park they call the market manager. Like, leave me alone. I'm trying to market my own stuff. Okay?

Jan Stankiewicz 7:07
Yeah.

Sue Balcom 7:09
Well, there's there's bookkeeping, you know, you have to keep track of people, you have to keep track of their membership dollars, you have to be responsible to them. So you have meetings and you report to them what you've done with their dollars and what benefit they're getting. But farmers are independent thinkers. So sometimes I think even the vendors aren't cognizant of what a market manager is doing for them behind the scenes.

Jan Stankiewicz 7:32
Mm hmm. Right. And that is that something to also kind of make note of is that farmer's markets operate very differently. So Bismarck Farmer's Market, sounds like you guys are very set up and like you said, committed, that's a good word. Committed to operating and having integrity around your products and your vendors. But there is differences across markets too. Other markets are more open or more forgiving or loose on their, like rules or regulations or anything. So just for, you know, shoppers or customers, it's just interesting to see the differences in how markets are operating.

Sue Balcom 8:13
I kind of have a theory about that. And that is that I think sometimes people don't take us seriously. You know, I think sometimes they thi...