"I think people are eating out less. You might just stay home and buy special ingredients," said Nicky Uy, who manages the farmers market programs at the Food Trust, a Philadelphia organization that promotes nutrition. The Food Trust operates about 30 farmers markets in this region.
Budgetary belt-tightening may be one factor behind what seems to be a national trend for these alternatives to supermarkets.
"Generally, sales at farmer markets are on the rise," said Stacy Miller, executive director of the national umbrella group, the Farmers Market Coalition. "As people's budgets change, so do their priorities. . . . There's a much bigger emphasis now on cooking and eating at home."
Miller surveyed the coalition's board of directors - made up of farmers market officials, some in states where business is well under way - and found foot traffic up in Dallas and sales up 20 percent over last year in Seattle.
"There's certainly a huge increase in interest in farmers markets," said Joanna Pernick, who heads the farmers market program for Farm to City, a community-agriculture group based in Philadelphia. Farm to City hasn't been able to handle all the requests from communities wanting to start farmers markets.
The group operates 14 markets in Philadelphia and its suburbs, including two new ones this season - in Manayunk, at the Canal View park on Main Street, and in Bryn Mawr, in the municipal lot on Lancaster Avenue in front of the Bryn Mawr train station.
