Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407250066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Three or four years ago, it would be full," the 40-year farmer's market veteran says wistfully.
Back then, farmers crowded the stalls daily, elbow to elbow, laying out a rainbow of freshly picked beans, corn, peaches, tomatoes and onions.
Many are still there today, but their ranks are beginning to thin. The market is still packed with vendors on weekends, but on some weekdays, the vacant spaces outnumber the bustling ones, especially in the section between Kirk and Church avenues.
Time and the gradual decline of the family farm are slowly taking a toll on Roanoke's historic City Market.
One by one, through death or attrition, veteran denizens of the yellow awnings have left. Few are clamoring to replace them.
Buddy Naff of Boones Mill died of cancer in 1993 after years of hawking hothouse-grown flowers at curbside.
Roanoke County farmer Paul Leonard, who sold vegetables, plants and Christmas wreaths woven from pine boughs at the market for 50 years, suffered a fatal heart attack in Florida last year.
Other longtime vendors now are retired or semi-retired. Paul Grisso sold his peach and apple orchards in the Cave Spring area last year.
Bent Mountain farmer Joyce Cruise, a market institution, doesn't make the trip into downtown every day anymore. Roanoke County farmer John Richardson also has retired.
"Farmers have passed away or retired, and no young ones are coming along," Guthrie says, figuring her own retirement is five or six years off.
Statistics support that notion. According to the U.S. Census, the Roanoke area lost 221 farms between 1987 and 1992, the most recent count available. The greatest drop occurred in Franklin County, which lost 181 farms alone. A farm, as counted by the Census, is any acreage producing a cash crop worth $1,000 or more.
Another indication is rent the city has taken in from farmers in recent years. After jumping by more than 50 percent between 1990 and 1992, total collections have leveled off and even fallen slightly.
Rent collections rose from just more than $13,000 in 1990 to $21,854 in 1992, according to the city finance department. But they inched backward during the next two years. In fiscal 1994, which ended June 30, the city's take totaled $20,527.
Although the stalls still are fully rented at $25 per month, not every farmer shows up with produce every day, says Jimmy Layman, market clerk. The drop in income is mostly because of a decline in $8 daily rentals and monthly "secondary" rents. The latter, also $25 per month, allows a farmer in one stall to also use an adjacent one when the primary renter takes a day off.
Other factors that are leaving the stalls underutilized this year include a late harvest because of freezing weather last winter and a late frost in the spring, Layman says.
Some merchants such as Gary Crowder, owner of Wertz's County Store, believe a few farmers have left for the Salem Farmers Market, which opened in 1992. Beth Carson, director of the Salem market, says it has 46 regular vendors. The rent there is $45 per month or $5 daily.
One who has moved to Salem is Clifford Hawley, who has farmed near Bent Mountain for 25 years. He used to sell produce in Roanoke, but says he finds the Salem market offers better access for farmers and more parking for customers.
Vinton also has a farmers market where regular vendors pay $27.50 per month for reserved tables, and there is no charge for daily sellers who bring their own tables. Longtime Vinton vendor Vanessa Sauers says she hasn't seen any Roanoke regulars set up shop there.
Whatever the cause of intermittent vacancies in the Roanoke stalls, they aren't going unnoticed by Downtown Roanoke Inc., the business association that administers the market. Matt Kennell, the organization's executive director, says the group is concerned about the market's future and is taking steps to sustain it.
"I'm not sure that we're in any crisis now ... [but] we're concerned that a number of the farmers are getting older. We can see a problem down the road, and we're trying to react to that in advance," he says.
The farmers are crucial to the identity of downtown Roanoke, Kennell says.
"Every city has its one draw or things it's recognized for. In Roanoke, this is it," he says.
Downtown Roanoke Inc. recently joined with the Cooperative Extension Service at Virginia Tech in an attempt to stem any future decline in the number of curbside vegetable merchants.
The team published a brochure and is distributing it to younger farmers in hope of luring them to Roanoke. Other strategies will be developed this year, Kennell says.
But it may be a tough sell, says Grisso, a Downtown Roanoke board member.
In years past, farms would be passed on through generations of families. But many farmers' children no longer want to farm.
"If you really look close, there's not many full-time farmers in the Roanoke Valley anymore," Grisso says.
Although Guthrie's son owns a greenhouse, her daughters want nothing to do with farming. One works for a doctor; the other is a hairdresser.
"[Farming] is too hard work, and there's not enough money in it," she says.
A surgeon who wants to open a vineyard and winery bought Grisso's orchards last year for $1.2 million. The peach farmer held onto it until then in case his son wanted to continue the business. But the younger Grisso chose graduate school and a career as an oil company chemist instead.
A farmer's hours are long, and the work is dangerous and burdened with government regulation. Dependable hired hands are hard to find, and the supply gets shorter every passing year, Grisso says.
"My son, he could make an easier living doing something else," he says.
Grisso believes that the market eventually may be transformed from one featuring only locally grown produce to booths with fruits and vegetables from around the country. Some market farmers already sell produce grown out of state, although they won't admit it, he says.
But Kennell says the market shouldn't try to compete with grocery stores.
"I certainly hope that doesn't happen. It's certainly not our intention to do that. It's made to showcase local products," he says.
If younger farmers aren't successfully lured to the market, local craftspeople and artists may be, Kennell says. The market already rents stalls to two artisans during the week, and it is attempting to draw artists to Market Street on Sundays.
The market also needs some capital improvements, such as new awnings, Kennell says. The existing ones are beginning to look weathered.
"It's not like the sky is falling. The market is doing very well; we want to keep that momentum going," he says. "We want to keep that attraction."
by CNB