Farmers markets opened for business Saturday around Central Arkansas, but in this time of social distancing and sanitizing, they operated differently.
Produce stands were several feet apart at the Argenta Farmers Market on 406 Main St. in North Little Rock, and sellers in personal protective equipment stood behind tables set up in a way to keep customers out of touching distance of the products.
Foot traffic was thinner than usual, but the farmers were grateful for the business.
John Gaudin, president of Argenta Wealth Management and owner of the parking lot where the farmers hold their market, said he couldn't leave the farmers, many of them longtime friends, hanging out to dry.
"These farmers, I've known for years," Gaudin said. "They called and asked if I would reopen and just do it for a short period of time."
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Argenta has had a farmers market since 2007, Gaudin said, but it's never dealt with anything remotely like the pandemic's social distancing and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health guidelines.
This year, customers are able to buy produce as long as they are wearing masks and keep their distance from other shoppers and the farmers. Masks were among items available for purchase at the market Saturday.
Farmers, struggling amid canceled business orders during the health crisis and shutdown, will have a place to sell in Argenta, Gaudin said, from 8-10 a.m. on Saturdays.
"They grow fields and raise chickens and hogs and lambs and goats -- the whole nine yards," Gaudin said. "And they need a place to be able to sell, and right now with the normal outlets, which are typically restaurants, closed as well, they have an overflow of product."
Mushrooms, honey, eggs, sweets and meat products lined the stands Saturday ready for purchase. Some farmers, like Jess Wilkins of the Wye Mountain Mushroom Farm, said farmers markets are one of the remaining lifelines for these businesses.
"At the beginning of the pandemic, it was horrible because [everyone] canceled their orders, all the markets shut down," Wilkins said. "So revenue went to zero."
And he's had to get creative to find outlets for his wares. Wilkins has begun looking online for ways to get his produce to customers.
"I just joined the online market two or three weeks before all this happened, so I don't have much experience in it," Wilkins said. "I don't know if sales are more than they would have been."
On Saturday, most of the farmers at the Argenta Farmers Market planned to wrap up at 10 a.m. and then move to the White Water Tavern farmers market, which opened the previous Saturday and operates from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Wilkins said that so far, the farmers markets are helping to keep him going.
"The past few weeks, it's been picking up in the online markets," Wilkins said. "They've been doing better, and now we've got White Water. I'm so glad they are coming back. Very needed."
Every farmers market has a different situation depending on its location.
In downtown Little Rock's River Market District, the farmers market, which is normally open on Saturdays in May, has decided to wait out this month. It has an opening target date of June 1, according to the director of River Market operations for the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, Diana Long.
"We want to wait and see for a minute what's going to shake out," Long said. "The availability of cleaning products is OK. The availability of hand sanitizer -- the gel kind you can get in a stand that's easy for groups of people to use when they walk in a building -- we've been unable to source that at this point."
The availability of hand sanitizer is just one reason Long said the market cannot safely reopen now. It also faces logistical issues and CDC guidelines regarding operation of farmers markets.
"The CDC sent out some guidelines about how to do a farmers market, and we thought maybe we could do a drive-thru market," Long said. "And then we watched what a couple of other markets did around the country and kept an eye on that and did not feel like we could successfully do it in a safe manner."
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Long said that for the River Market farmers market to reopen, the facility needs a large quantity of good-quality supplies for cleaning and a good way to keep customers and sellers close enough to transact business but far enough away to keep everyone healthy.
Many of the patrons and sellers at the River Market farmers market are older, Long said, and thus are at higher risk of serious illness from the coronavirus.
Still, Long is working to promote the market's businesses online, highlighting the stands that growers set up at their home locations.
Metro on 05/03/2020