ALBA and Farmers’ Market Network Holds First Regional Training in Monterey

On March 17th and 18th, farmers market leaders convened in Monterey, California from as far as New York City and New Orleans in order to facilitate a two day training for managers and vendors. This event, hosted by ALBA marked the first training led by the Farmers Market Network, a growing network of leaders and practitioners convened by the Wallace Center at Winrock International.

The training was split between two parallel tracks: one for managers and one for farmers, with interpreters for Spanish speaking participants. Topics included measuring market performance, managing markets for diversity, EBT and community marketing, manager expectations of vendors (and vice versa), and much more.

Participants visited the Old Monterey Marketplace to engage in a Q and A session with market manager Ray Headley, who discussed the market’s recent green initiative to ban plastic bags from the market and answered questions about that effort’s potential effect on the farmers’ bottom lines. Deborah Yashar, Food Systems Program Manager at ALBA said “It was wonderful to engage farmers market practitioners from all over California and the country in one room to voice common challenges, rejoice in shared successes, plant new ideas and forge stronger paths in our work.”