Draft description of Market Typology

An infographic titled “Farmers Market Praxis Typology” presents a matrix categorizing farmers markets as flagship, foodie, satellite, and tourist, with a focus on food sovereignty and the diversity of producer and community engagement.

FMC has long used this typology and its accompanying research that began through Market Umbrella’s trans•act project. That multi-year project, which included FMC, gathered real-time data across the U.S. on market design and functions in order to share that information with support entities, funders, and policy makers to better understand how to work with them, fund them, and grow markets’ capacity.

The typology, still unpublished although often referred to in many published research articles, is helpful to market operators as well in finding similar markets to their own, with operational methods, funding, and decisions that align with theirs.

The typology is not static, nor will all markets fit neatly into one type. Instead, like the market sector itself, it is best seen as a snapshot of U.S. market communities.  Through the questions and data collected through this framework, we can see shared goals across regions via selection of market day places, rules, the market’s vendors and its program collaborations. Through this research we can also see how the local, regional food and civic culture (and its challenges and assets) further define (and sometimes thwart) the market’s management success.

Simply put, with this typology we can urge funders to more fairly assess success for markets in the US, not relying only on size or age, and helping to increase understanding of the many ways that markets are designed for their local places.

This graphic is a simplified version of the typology gathered so far, with more research upcoming by its primary authors, by Dr. Moon and Richard McCarthy.

FMC