Photo by Valerie McCaffrey Caption for Photo #367: The Douglas Farmers Market will start its first season of weekly farmers markets this Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Raul Castro 10th Street Park. Several growers will bring herb and vegetable starts and fruit trees for backyard growing including Desert Blossom of Tombstone shown here selling a wide selection of seedlings as well as sprouts, lettuce and salad mixes at this year’s Earth Day Celebration at the Sierra Vista Farmers Market.

“We really excited about the opening of the Douglas Farmers Market and would like to be one of its primary growers as Douglas is really our “hometown”, said Jennifer Racicot who raises vegetables, chickens and goats with her husband on La Buena Vida Farm in Portal.  La Buena Vida will donate a basket full of farm-fresh produce, eggs and some of its goat’s milk soap for a raffle to celebrate the opening of the farmers market’s first season on Sunday, May 31st from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the charming Raul  Castro 10th Street Park in downtown Douglas.

Douglas is also the hometown of Simmons Honey where the family tends bees and collects honey and hive products such as bee pollen, honey comb and beeswax for the candles its makes along with home-style pickles and jellies and granola and baked goods made with honey.  “We’re happy to again have a retail outlet for all our products at the Douglas Farmers Market so our customers from both sides of the border don’t have to come all the way out to the farm,” said Ray Simmons who is a regular vendor at the Sierra Vista and Bisbee Farmers Markets.

This talented family will also perform at the market’s opening day as The Simmons Family Band playing old fashioned music with lots of fancy fiddling.

Another local agriculture success story will be celebrated at the opening of the Douglas Farmers Market with a book signing by the Just Coffee (Café Justo) folks who roast coffee beans in Agua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas, grown by a cooperative of 40 farming families in Mexico whose members no longer have to leave home and risk their lives coming here for work to support their families.  They not only get a fair-trade price for their beans but also share in the profit from the finished product.

“Just Coffee, Caffeine with a Conscience” by Mark Adams and Tommy Bassett III is the compelling and intimate story of a new “just trade” economic model “that fosters the growth of mutually beneficial relationships across the border.” Just Coffee will also offer samples of its ethical brew along with bags of organic, shade-grown, freshly roasted Arabica, Robusta and decaf coffee beans and mugs and t-shirts with its logo.  

Members of the FFA (Future Farmers of America) Chapter at the Douglas High School have also chosen to be involved in the community agricultural movement through participation in and co-sponsorship of the Douglas Farmers Market.  The students plan to sell produce and plants they grow at home and at the school’s Paradise Garden which will include rooted grape wine cuttings and vegetable starts.  Britt Groves, the ag teacher, said, “This community effort will help instill an entrepreneurial spirit in the members of the Douglas FFA as well as help the community learn about the benefits of locally grown agricultural products.”

A measure of the town’s support for a farmers market of its own is witnessed by the number of organizations that have attended four planning meetings and stepped forward as market co-sponsors including the City of Douglas, the Southeast  Arizona Medical  Center, The Douglas Area Food Bank, Douglas Chamber of Commerce and the Cochise County Health Department.

The City of Douglas pledged that it would do everything it could to help start the farmers market and offered reduced fees for the Castro Park, with its tall shade trees, stage, fountain and seating as the primary site in addition to the historic old Phelps Dodge Building next to the Gadsden Hotel on G Avenue as the high wind/rain location.

Food Bank volunteer, Lea Dodge, got the ball rolling after she bought fresh produce at the fledgling farmers market in Duarte, California while visiting family. Thinking that she would like to see something similar happen here, she invited Valerie McCaffrey, current manager of the Sierra Vista Farmers Market and former manager and co-founder of the Bisbee Farmers Market to attend the March meeting of the Special Action Group to talk about starting a farmers market. McCaffrey is also head of Baja Arizona Sustainable Agriculture, (www.bajaaz.org), a 501c3 non profit educational organization whose mission is to help increase local food production and its marketing in southern Arizona.

Dodge has recruited a great line up of local food producers for the first market which includes backyard growers and several other farmers such as the Montoya Family, Coyote Corner (eggs), Stout’s Cider Mill and native and garden plant growers, Spadefoot Nursery and Desert Blossom.  There will be a lot of good food for breakfast and lunch at the market with El Mitote offering “jugos” or fresh fruit juices, smoothies and fruit salads, La Carreta with tasty fish tacos and home-style Mexican food and many baked goods to choose from.

The Committee that will govern the market is chaired by Kathleen Gomez, in charge of public relations at the hospital.  “Southeast  Arizona Medical  Center (SAMC) has always had the concern of our community’s health at the forefront,” she said. A recent study of Douglas  High School students indicated that 21.3 percent of students are overweight and 17.9 percent are considered obese.  This is more than twice the national average of high school students in the U.S.  In addition, just 17 percent of Cochise  County’s youth consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.

Gomez sees the farmers market as one of the steps needed to promote healthier eating.  She is very enthusiastic about it having lived in New York City where lots of fresh produce is available from many farmers markets.

According to Gomez, “The farmers market will provide an educational arena for the public to learn about nutrition and a healthy lifestyle while enticing all of us into including more fresh fruits and vegetables in our diets. The market will offer another social opportunity for our community, a place to gather, stroll and relax while listening to talented local musicians and watching cooking and handcraft demonstrations.  It is also important to support local and regional farmers and growers, especially in today’s world.  If we can change and enhance the public’s eating habits, especially our youth, then maybe our community can turn the tide of its high diabetes rate and become a healthier community,” she said.

SAMC will offer free blood pressure and blood sugar checks at the market’s opening and information on healthy eating and snacks.

Don’t miss the ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. by Mayor Dr. Michael Gomez who will officially open the market. Pet the baby chicks, watch fleece from a sheep get transformed into yarn through a carding and spinning demonstration by the Bisbee Fiber Arts Guild and follow your nose to solar ovens roasting a locally-raised pot roast and baking mesquite zucchini bread.

For vendor applications and flyers for the Douglas Farmers Market contact Lea Dodge at 805.0086 and leadodge@msn.com or Kathleen Gomez at 805.5938 and kgomez@samcaz.org. Information is also available at the Visitor’s Center.