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Welcome to the Maine
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This is the 27-Feb-2008 edition.
About MFFM
Be sure to read the latest Market News
NEW! Subscribe to the free occassonal MFFM email newsletter
by clicking here and sending
the resulting email.
December, 2007: MFFM.org has undergone a makeover! It's got all the same great informative stuff it has always had, plus a few new goodies as well. Many broken links were either removed or repaired. We hope you like it and find that it is organized better. Let us know how you like it! There will be a few more changes in the coming days, mostly minor adjustments and re-arranging of information into better locations and off the front page.
NEW FEATURE: Store your market's applications and important documents here!
It was suggested to me that markets without their own website would benefit from having some of their important documents available here at www.MFFM.org for members and potential members to download. Any market can send their applcation, preferably in .doc, .rtf or .pdf format, to tom@mffm.org and we'll make them available here within a few days.
So to begin this, we start with the . . .
HARRISON Farmers' Market (pdf)
How do you spell it? Farmers market, farmers' market, or farmer's market? I've seen it done each way, and the misspelling irks me like seeing my farm's name spelled wrong on my mail. As my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Liston made us memorize, adding the apostrophe makes a noun possessive; adding it before the "s" makes it a singular possessive; adding it after the "s" makes it a plural possessive. Applying this rule we realize that when we talk about a farmer's market, we are actually referring to a market belonging to one farmer. When we talk of a farmers' market, we are referring to a market belonging to many farmers. If we don't use any apostrophe at all, we're just demonstrating that we're afraid to guess. So, let's get it right. A group of farmers selling together is a farmers' market. And after all, it's the Law. 'Nuf said.
The Maine Farmers' Market Forum has been discontinued.
Mid-November, 2006: Online since January 18, 2006, Maine Farmers' Markets Forum had only two visitors since then and was being regularly spammed. Given the infrequent usage, the bother of trying to weed out spurious messages does not seem worth the effort, so it has been discontinued. If someone else wants to host and maintain a Farmers' Markets Forum, let me know and I will gladly link to it from here.
Get Real Get Maine, the Maine Department of
Agriculture's website with listings of all Maine farmers' markets, CSA's, farm stands and pick-your-own's.
HELP THIS WEBSITE GROW!
We want to make this website into an even better resource for Maine Farmers' Markets and market members! It can be with your help. Here's some of the ways, and perhaps you can think of more.
- List your market's website here. (Send us the web address.)
- Tell us if you are looking for new members. (We'll post it on this page.)
- Send your market rules (guidelines, regulations) and bylaws so other markets can compare.
- Send news about your market. (Remember, it's for market members, not shoppers!)
- Start a web-based bulletin board for Farmers' Market discussions. We'll link to it.
- Write a short piece about difficulties your market is having or solutions it has developed.
- Does your market limit membership for any reason? Tell us why or why it doesn't!
- Make suggestions for this website.
- [Your ideas here.]
Send your market info and ideas to the webweaver.
About the Maine Federation of Farmers' Markets
The Maine Federation of Farmers' Markets (MFFM) was organized in the spring of 1991 by farmers' market members to help meet the mutual needs of Maine's farmers' markets and market members and to promote the establishment and popular use of farmers' markets in Maine.
As an organization, the MFFM is currently dormant, except for this website.
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From 1992 to 1996, the Federation sponsored a booth and a presentation about farmers' markets at the Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta in January. Published from 1991 to 1998, our quarterly newsletter Selling Outdoors spotlighted various markets and issues and in general serves as a information sharing resource for Federation members. A compilation of the best articles will be published in the Spring of 2000. To buy a copy of The Best of Selling Outdoors, contact Tom Roberts, 27 Organic Farm Rd., Pittsfield ME 04967, phone 487-5056, tom@snakeroot.net |
 Kate Slattery, Dick Keough and Tom Roberts at the 1993 Ag Trades Show (click to enlarge) |
Other Federation projects have included a co-operative hanging scales and jar order and a "Vendor Exchange Program" where small or new marketers work as helpers at the stands of larger farmers as "apprentices" to learn the ropes.
