Dataset of the Day: Farmers Markets

Farmers markets are an important part of our food system in the US both for giving citizens access to fresh and healthy produce and other locally produced products and for giving local farmers an opportunity to market and sell their products. They also play a role in providing a more environmentally friendly food source than foods shipped from far away, even from other countries. Also, with more food contamination outbreaks occurring from mass produced products, farmers markets can offer a local alternative for fresh foods. With summer fast approaching and the seasons fresh picks beginning to ripen, many seasonal markets are or will soon open for business.

The USDA provides a database on their website that lists all of the farmers markets in the US, by state. We have geocoded all of these markets and put them together in one dataset. The dataset also contains useful information such as the market schedule and if the market takes food stamps. This dataset can be used just to locate a market closest to you or to do analysis in the areas of agriculture, public health and economics.

This map shows all of the markets in the US. Using Maker!, you click on a point and all of the market information will be available.

(Click on map to view in Maker!)

Below, you can see the markets in different cities in the US.

Farmers Markets, while a great way to get fresh produce and other products , can sometimes be pricey. That means that citizens who may be most in need of access to healthy foods can often not afford to shop at their local market. Since some markets accept food stamps (EBT), I thought it would be interesting to look at the markets that accept EBT with January 2009 unemployment rates by county. The map below shows areas with populations that may be suffering economically which can limit their access to farmers markets. These populations may benefit from markets who accept EBT (the dataset also contains information on which markets accept WIC and SFMNP).

Click here to view this map.

(Finder! also has datasets for Farmers Markets for each state. Click here to access those.)