Farmers' Markets

Farmers' markets are public markets typically held outdoors, where farmers congregate to sell anything from fruits and vegetables to meat, dairy products, honey, baked goods, and cut flowers. Most producers who sell at these events are relatively small and often use fewer pesticides and herbicides than large-scale farmers. The popularity of these events in the United States has grown tremendously over the years. In 1970, for example, there were about 340 retail farmers' markets in the United States, and by 2005 that number had increased to almost 4,000. Similar trends are also recorded in the United Kingdom, where there were no farmers' markets in the early 1990s but almost 300 by the decade's end. Farmers' markets probably originated in Ancient Greece and Rome, where venders ...