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Author Archives: Darlene Wolnik
Program Review for 2025
Darlene Wolnik December 16, 2025As FMC moves into its 20th year, we are actively reflecting on our work over that time, even as we are planning for a more dynamic future where FMC is responding in real time to the needs of our sector while growing leadership and amplifying the innovation among our market leaders. In terms of program,…
Join the 2025/2026 POP Club Community of Practice
Darlene Wolnik September 9, 2025Farmers Market Coalition is kicking off a 2-year POP Club reflection and resource-share among market with POP Clubs, leading to a new revised Guide.This project is in partnership with the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association (PCFMA)* which operates the club at many of their sites. POP started in May 2011 at the Oregon City Farmers Market in Oregon City, Oregon. It was created by the…
Results from survey on federal grant freezes and cancellations
Darlene Wolnik April 2, 2025FMC sent out a survey to markets and state associations through our listservs asking for information on any funding freezes from their federal grants. About 20 organizations responded to the survey directly, with another 8 offering information via email. The low level of responses for an FMC survey also points to another issue that FMC…
U.S. farmers market attendance and experiences: Descriptive results from a national survey
Darlene Wolnik February 25, 2025To provide farmers market leaders and researchers with new insights about farmers market attendees, given shifting consumer preferences and demographics, we conducted a nearly nationally representative survey in the United States. Among the 5,141 respondents, 38.51% reported attending farmers markets infrequently (i.e., five or fewer times per year), and 41.78% reported attending with more regularity…
Becoming the Farmers Market Support Program
Darlene Wolnik April 5, 2021One of the chief goals of the FMC Strategic Plan that our stakeholders prioritized is for FMC to Support FM Operators/Networks in Capacity-Building.* Another is to become an active anti-racist organization and ally. As a result of working towards these two priorities, we’ve redesigned what was previously called our Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) Program…
Farmers Markets Respond to COVID-19 — Best Practices, Examples, and Resources
Darlene Wolnik March 18, 2020As concerns about the spread of COVID-19 grow, farmers market operators are wondering how best to respond. Markets are grappling with their role as public gatherings that are vital to food access for consumers and the livelihoods of farmers. In response, market operators are developing communications, preparing contingency plans, and in some regions, beginning to…
Maine Event
Darlene Wolnik January 28, 2020by Darlene Wolnik, Training and Technical Assistance Director I just got back from a wonderful week in Maine for the Maine Federation of Farmers Market (MFFM) Convention held during the Maine Ag Trades Show. I was able to attend courtesy of Maine’s Director of Agricultural Resource Development at the Department of Agriculture Conservation and…
Training and Technical Assistance 2020
Darlene Wolnik January 14, 2020In November of 2019, I accepted the brand-new position of Training and Technical Assistance Director at FMC, and in December, I began to build the T&TA team. With this evolution, FMC can offer sustained new training programs for market operators and more fully support existing training programs, seek and create additional desperately needed resources and…
Summit Debrief
Darlene Wolnik November 1, 2019The 2nd annual National Direct Agricultural Marketing Summit took place October 7-9, 2019 in Rosemont, Illinois. FMC hosted pre-Summit activities, including a state & network leader meeting, an emerging issues panel, and discussion groups on markets training and technical assistance needs. For the second year, Farmers Market Coalition gave its all for the Summit, including bringing the entire FMC…
TED Talk: Why You Should Shop At Your Local Farmers Market
Darlene Wolnik October 1, 2019TED Speaker Mohammad Modarres developed the first-ever Zabihah Halal and Glatt Kosher “Interfaith Meat” to make faith-based foods more accessible. Here he talks about one solution to the farmer crisis. (transcript)00:13: It’s been about a decade since the last financial crisis, yet this industry has never been bigger. Legislation that was meant to better regulate its largest…
