Eating healthy is even more important during this time, and farmers markets are changing with the times.
You can find a list of farmers markets in Arkansas here.
The Farmers Market Coalition is spearheading a National Farmers Market Week campaign August 2-8, 2020. Farmers and market managers are welcome to download the graphics on this page to create flyers promoting your local market. Just click on the graphics in the sidebar for either a horizontal or vertical flyer, download the art, and add your local information.
National Farmers Market Week is designed to address the specific ways farmers markets continue to be an essential part of local food systems. This year, NFMW is centered on three key messages:
First, farmers markets are essential businesses. Local food systems with short supply chains are resilient and dependable in making food available to their communities, and provide an essential service to the communities they feed as well as the farmers and ranchers that rely on them. Second, farmers market operators are local food heroes. When the pandemic hit, market managers were some of the first to implement innovative strategies to change their operations around public health protocols. Despite that fact, market operators are often left out of relief efforts for food systems workers. Third, farmers markets are safe. Emerging research supports that outdoor marketplaces like farmers markets can be safer than alternative indoor retailers due to unlimited air circulation, sunlight, the flexibility to enforce social distancing by spreading out vendors and products. Farmers Market operators continue to implement new strategies to keep their communities, staff, and vendors safe.
The Arkansas Farmers Market Association partnered with the Arkansas Center for Obesity Prevention in early 2020. Increasing access to healthy, local foods is a vital part of the mission of AFMA, ArCOP and the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. No one does that better than our state's Farmers Markets. It's why ArCOP and the AFMA are a great fit.
ArCOP encourages all of our Arkansas Farmers Market Association members, along with our partners and friends to let the public know what a vital role our markets play in our state economy.
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture has collaborated with a number of organizations to create a map of resources for local food during the COVID-19 pandemic.
