This week, August 6-12, is "National Farmers Market Week."

Farmers’ Market, Little Rock, Arkansas
Originally uploaded by hanneorla.

I don't know how many farmers markets there are in DC, one of the main groups that has provided technical services in the past, Community Harvest, has dissolved. (I am mulling over the Citizens Planning Coalition stepping into the breach and picking up this function.)

But there are a bunch around the city, including in Brookland, Mt. Pleasant, Anacostia (sponsored by the Capital Area Food Bank) and many sponsored by FreshFarm Markets in places like H Street NE, Penn Quarter, and Dupont Circle (their biggest one).

"Back in the day," much of the City of Washington used to be farmed. Small farms were called "gardens," and you will find frequently the occupation of gardener listed on Census enumeration sheets. There were "feed stores" in the city, such as on North Capitol Street in the vicinity of Union Station.

Today, we are more disconnected from foodways, so much so that some inner city schoolchildren want the City of Washington to declare the city ("state") fruit to be cherries, because of the cherry trees on the Tidal Basin. Yet those trees don't bear edible fruit.

Starting this Friday is the Montgomery County Agriculture Fair and Montgomery County has the "Agricultural Preserve," which is 2.5 times the size of the City of Washington. Click here for more information about that.

This page from the Department of Agriculture in Maryland lists farmers markets throughout Maryland. And south of DC the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission works to link local farmers to local markets, to preserve farms, and improve business. For information about Virginia Farmers Markets, log onto the website Virginia Grown.

The University of the District of Columbia's Cooperative Extension Service is probably as close as we have to a "State Department of Agriculture."

This report, Public Markets as a Vehicle for Social Integration and Upward Mobility, makes for interesting reading.

Click here for the USDA website for farmers markets.

And I've told you plenty of times that one of my favorite farmers markets in the region is the Waverly Farmers Market in Baltimore. Yet I am told that the Baltimore Farmers Market, sponsored by the City of Baltimore Office of Promotion, is even better.

Index Keywords: food-agriculture-markets