Comparing Apples and Coconuts: Food Regimes and (Farmers) Markets in Brooklyn, USA, and Suva, Fiji

Christine Porter,Lacey Gaechter,Shikha Upadhyaya

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2020.093.020

Abstract

Until the advent and spread of supermarkets, the markets that we now call farmers, public, open-air, or traditional markets needed no adjectives. They were simply markets. Currently, the bodies of research about traditional markets common in the Global South and about farmers markets resurging in the Global North tend to be separate. However, viewed through the lens of food regime frameworks, together these markets come more clearly into focus as globally local alternatives to a corporate regime of supermarkets. As microcases within this macrosociological framework, this paper examines two urban markets—one traditional daily market in Suva, Fiji, and one seasonal Saturday farmers market in East New York, Brooklyn, in the United States. We analyze interviews and surveys with vendors and market-related documents. As we illustrate with brief case descriptions, other than both being urban, the individual markets and their contexts could hardly be more different. One market was formalized early in the colonial food regime, and the other was founded more recently as an alternative to the current neoliberal corporate regime. However, vendors in both reported that selling at the market generates income, autonomy, respect, and social connectedness for them. These commonalities suggest that examining lessons from such markets across communities globally, South or North, traditional or farmers, may offer new insights into how to sustain and expand such markets even in the face of supermarket domination. In addition, doing so with a food regime lens may make that work more useful for informing how to support traditional and farmers market development in ways that help keep aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute, and consume food at the heart of their work, as real alternatives to neoliberal frameworks. See the press release for this article.

Highlights

The bodies of research literature regarding “traditional markets” that still predominate in most of the Global South and “farmers markets” resurging in the Anglophone North rarely overlap (Cody, 2015a)
In the context of this macrolevel sociological framework of food regimes and the current corporate regime’s “supermarket revolution” (Reardon et al, 2003), we explore, at the micro-case level, what vendor experiences at urban markets of the Global South and Global North have in common
It makes a relatively minor addition to research on markets by collecting and synthesizing some detailed empirical data in two case studies. These data may offer useful comparisons in future studies that characterize, for example, reported vendor earnings and other benefits. It compares and contrasts two very different urban markets—one large, daily, Global South market that is over 120 years old, and one small, seasonal and weekly, Global North neighborhood market less than 20 years old

Summary

Introduction

The bodies of research literature regarding “traditional markets” that still predominate in most of the Global South and “farmers markets” resurging in the Anglophone North rarely overlap (Cody, 2015a). Wherever they lie on the compass, such markets enable food producers and preparers to sell their products directly to those who will eat it.. Viewing Southern and Northern markets in a common frame, rather than separately, yields insights into the local and global functions that such markets can and do play This knowledge can inform efforts to sustain and grow the contributions of these markets to achieving social goals such as economic and community development, environmental sustainability, food sovereignty, and equity. In particular we analyze the markets from the standpoint of vendors

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