FILE - Squashes, ginger, seasonal greens and peppers fill bins of vendors like Groundwork at the year-round Portland Farmers Market at PSU Saturdays.
Jo Mancuso / OPB
The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to Oregon’s farmers markets.
According to the Oregon Farmers Market Association, visitor numbers and sales both dropped by nearly 50% from 2019 to 2020.
Ashley Hess is the executive director of the association. She thinks the declines reflected both pandemic-era restrictions and shifts in consumer behavior during the early months of the pandemic.
“Early on in the pandemic, we didn’t know a lot about COVID, right? People were behaving really differently,” Hess said. “We were still social distancing … so [the markets] were letting less customers in to begin with.”
Though attendance at Oregon farmers markets is steadily recovering, it has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
As the Capital Press recently reported, shoppers made an estimated 3.5 million visits to Oregon farmers markets in 2022, compared with roughly 4 million in 2019 and 2 million in 2020.
“We’re definitely much higher than during the pandemic, but we’re still down about 13% from where we were the year before,” Hess said.
Sales and visitor numbers have rebounded fairly evenly across the state, but Hess said fewer vendors are returning to markets in rural areas.
“A few people shifted out to the country during the pandemic, but we’re seeing more and more people flock to urban areas, and I think that might just be reflected in our farmers markets,” she said.
Hess said markets have also struggled with the impacts of climate change, with smoke from wildfires and extreme heat causing more market closures in recent years.
She said that closing for a week, or even a day, can lead to significant revenue loss for smaller markets.
“They’re all nonprofit organizations; they operate on a shoestring or volunteer budget,” Hess said. “They have to assess really quickly and with a small team, that can be really difficult to do.”
The Legislature recently allocated $2 million to help farmers markets mitigate the impacts of climate-related closures.
Hess said the money will be used to provide training on climate resilience for staff and vendors, and to secure building space in different communities that markets can use when outdoor conditions are unsafe for staff and shoppers.
Oregon Farmers Market Association executive director Ashley Hess spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Listen to the full conversation here:
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Ashley Hess’ name. OPB regrets the error.