Wichita farmers market deemed ‘essential business,’ opens Saturday with extra precautions
Farmers market season has arrived in Wichita, and one of the city’s two popular annual markets is set to open on Saturday.
But making the call about whether to go ahead with opening day in in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t easy, said Tricia Holmes, the president of the Kansas Grown Farmers Market Board, and the market will be taking extra measures to try to keep people safe.
“Honestly, it has been a stressful call,” she said. “Of course, safety is first and foremost.”
Like grocery stores, farmers markets have been described in stay-at-home orders as “essential businesses” that can continue to operate. The Kansas Grown Market, which is set up in the parking lot of the Sedgwick Count Extension Center, 7001 W. 21st St., will open for the season from 7 a.m. to noon on Saturday.
The other big market — the Old Town Farm & Art Market downtown at 835 E. First St. — is scheduled to open its season on Saturday, April 18, but no one from the market could be reached for details on Tuesday.
The Kansas Grown market is known as a popular Saturday-morning destination, especially in the summer, and it often draws big crowds.
Holmes said that April, though, is not as busy. Tomatoes and melons aren’t ready, and fewer vendors attend, meaning crowds are smaller. She’s expecting fewer than 30 vendors this week. Most will be selling early-season crops like asparagus and lettuce.
The market, following and adding onto guidelines issued by the state, will be spacing booths at least 10 feet apart, and no distribution of free samples will be allowed, Holmes said.
The Sedgwick County Extension Center building will be closed, she said, so the market will set up two portable toilets with hand sanitation stations outside each one. A third hand sanitation station will be set up somewhere else in the market footprint.
The market will be distributing gloves and hand sanitizer at its information booth, and it will have masks and gloves for vendors who are not able to bring their own.
Organizers also will be reserving the first hour of the market — 7 to 8 a.m. — for elderly and immune compromised shoppers. And the market will be encouraging people not to touch items unless they’ve already purchased or decided to purchase them.
Holmes said that when the coronavirus crisis first started to unfold, she was unsure about whether to go ahead with opening the market on time, but when Sedgwick County listed farmers’ markets as essential businesses in its stay-at-home order, she decided to go ahead.
People need locally sourced food, she said, and her farmers need the income.
Agriculture is critical to our infrastructure,” she said. “We cannot let the farmers fail.”
Still, Holmes said, not all of her vendors want to come. She used the example of two elderly farmers, both with underlying health conditions. One has saved up a good retirement and is financially secure. He’s staying home. The other is suffering financially. He’s coming.
If the pandemic crisis extends into the summer, when the market traditionally gets big crowds, Holmes said she would reassess and decide if the market needed to limit vendors or control the number of people who enter the market at the same time. She’s already accepted that big-crowd events like Tomato Fest and Kids Day may have to be canceled this year
“We will be able to spread people out,” she said. “And I honestly think the open air shopping will be so much safer than going inside the big box store grocery stores.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 5:31 PM.
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