An array of colorful fruits and vegetables, lit by the sun's rays, fills the foldable plastic tables. Shoppers reconnect with old friends and strike up conversations with strangers. Vendors chat among themselves in their native tongues and light up when their customers understand those languages as well. At closing time, workers take down their tents and return home, preparing to return the next week.
Every week, hundreds of Rhode Islanders head to the farmers markets run by Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding the state’s local food system. The organization’s farmers markets are not just tools for expanding food access, but sources of community. Customers, vendors, and Farm Fresh workers come from various neighborhoods, generations, ethnicities, income levels, and lifestyles, but still come together through shared values of buying fresh and local foods.
Farm Fresh RI is a 501c3 nonprofit organization with a mission to support the local food system and expand the accessibility of fresh produce. Farm Fresh started as a Brown University student project in 2004; it has grown into a nationally recognized local food hub. It includes but is not limited to:
Hope’s Harvest has volunteers glean surplus crops from local farms to donate to RI hunger relief agencies;
Market Mobile is a food distribution system that connects customers to local farmers and food producers;
Harvest Kitchen is a culinary job training program that hires youth involved with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). The 16-19 year-olds make and sell dishes using local products.
Farm to School & Community Education coordinate lessons and activities in schools, libraries, senior centers, and community spaces to educate people of all ages about healthy eating, the environment, and local foods.
The most well-known of the Farm Fresh programs are the farmers markets. From June through October of every year, Farm Fresh runs six summertime markets. Three of them are in Providence—Armory Park, Broad Street, and Neutaconkanut Park. The rest are in Central Falls, Woonsocket, and West Warwick, and are named accordingly. Farm Fresh also runs a large Winter Farmers Market at their headquarters in the Valley neighborhood of Providence. The winter market runs from November through April. Over 300 farmers and food producers have sold their products at the farmers markets since 2007.
Each market is designed to reach communities that need access to locally grown products most; most are located in food deserts with decreased affordable food availability and higher low-income populations.
Experts and advocates are increasingly pushing for American society to rely more on local foods and less on imports from other regions or countries. Doing so will reduce pollution (food that travels farther causes more pollution, they say), reduce prices for consumers (food that travels farther also costs more), and ensure future food security by increasing investments in local infrastructure. Factors like climate change, land use changes, and inequitable access for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities threaten the viability of long-term food production in New England. Less than three percent of food and beverage expenditures in Rhode Island are for local products. Farm Fresh wants to expand the local food system and reduce the state’s reliance on external food sources.
At all markets, customers can use nutritional assistance program benefits to purchase produce. The programs accept:
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal program that provides low-income individuals with monthly allowances for groceries, accessible using an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card.
WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children a federal program that provides low-income mothers and/or their young children with monthly allowance cards for specific foods and products related to maternal or children’s health, such as formula. It also provides nutritional counseling and referrals to necessary services.
Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, run by the government of Rhode Island, provides low-income seniors with $50 benefit cards that can be used at participating RI farmers markets from May through November.
Thundermist Health Centers offer $10 a week to employees to spend at the Woonsocket and West Warwick Farmers Markets, which are located outside Thundermist facilities.
At designated tables, Farm Fresh employees provide recipients of nutritional assistance programs with specially designed gold coins that help them use their benefits to pay for produce. SNAP recipients also receive silver coins, which are the Bonus Bucks that can only be used on fruits, vegetables, herbs, and seedlings. Farm Fresh’s Bonus Bucks program doubles the SNAP value for eligible customers, so that every dollar a customer spends using SNAP gives them another dollar to use at the market. Shoppers spend the coins at the vendors’ stands, and when the vendors want to cash out, they bring the coins to the Farm Fresh workers who convert their coins into dollars. There are also farmers markets in Rhode Island not run by Farm Fresh that still have a stand where Farm Fresh workers manage Bonus Bucks and the coin system, such as the Hope Street Farmers Market in Providence.
All of these programs are part of Farm Fresh’s commitment to health equity and local food access. Many customers actually cite the acceptance of these benefits as the primary reason they go to the market. In fact, according to Farm Fresh RI, from 2015-2022, farmers markets in RI reported $1,313,850 worth of SNAP sales and $1,114,036 worth of Bonus Bucks sales, representing 13,450 customers. In 2023 alone, Farm Fresh distributed $226,220 in Bonus Bucks.
For some, the farmers markets run by Farm Fresh are integrated into their routine. For others, the markets are an occasional addition to their lives. The markets serve as microcosms of culture revolving around ideals of local food access.
Brown University senior Kenny Daici interviewed and photographed customers, vendors, and Farm Fresh workers at five of the seven farmers markets during September and October 2024. These vignettes show Rhode Islanders’ experiences with the farmers markets, and the markets’ roles in their communities and lives. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.