Leveraging Attitudes, Motivations, and Values from Farmers’ Market Managers in Florida: An Opportunity to Improve Nutritional Outcomes Through Extension

Abstract

Increasingly, farmers’ markets in the United States offer nutrition incentives to help limited-resource shoppers afford fresh fruits and vegetables and support local farmers. Despite increased attention to these efforts, there has been less focus on the market managers and staff members responsible for implementing and administering incentive programs. Using qualitative data collected from semi-structured phone interviews, we explore the attitudes, motivations, and values of farmers’ market managers in relation to their efforts to administer and promote a nutrition incentive program at their respective markets in Florida. Results demonstrate that program adopting managers: 1) express concern for inclusivity, social justice, and equity; 2) sympathize with the economic pressures their produce grower-vendors face; 3) are motivated to provide locally grown foods to all shoppers; 4) take pride in ethical standards and transparency protocols; and 5) value loyalty between themselves, their vendors and their customers. We believe Extension professionals can leverage prevailing attitudes among market managers to improve manager engagement with nutrition incentive programs and ensure expanded nutritional access outcomes at farmers’ markets for limited-resource shoppers.