He said that he’d spoken to the farmer in question, and the farmer confessed that he was using tomatoes that he hadn’t grown personally (which, apparently is against the rules of the market), and that sometimes stickers have to be put on produce so they can be sold in certain stores (something I’d heard from another organizer)…. but that still doesn’t explain how an Arkansas sticker got on the tomato.

No one has accused me of making anything up here, but I reiterate that as a person who supports the idea of farmer’s markets and generally anything legitimately Green, I have no motivation here except to call bullshit on the vendor who is obviously bending the truth. I was told the farmer was “beyond reproach”, but now he’s confessed to importing produce from other “farmers”—who themselves may have gotten the produce from the grocery.

Is the vendor in question just covering himself, like William Jefferson, by shifting the blame? Caught red-handed with the cash in the fridge, still pretending to be innocent? Whether or not he bought the tomato from the store himself, or got it from another person who did — his word is no longer “gold”.

The organizers are in a bind though, and i know there’s not much they can do. I’m sure they’d love for all their vendors to provide the markets with home-grown, fresh, local healthy produce. They don’t have the resources to follow them around and see if they’re pulling out of Sam’s Club with plastic bags filled with industrial produce.

Unfortunately, like everything else in Louisiana, the dirty worm of corruption gnaws away at the core. Keep your eyes peeled!

This morning on the local NPR station WWNO the “local minute” guy from louisianarebuilds.info used a line about “local fresh tomatoes at local farmers markets” that were “green” and more “healthy” for you, too. Made me want to scream!

Also I heard today from my pal Dan that (local grocery chain) Rouses has tomatoes with “Vine Grown in Arkansas” stickers on them, so my guess is maybe he gets his tomatoes from Rouses. Rouses is where we usually shop, and they do make an effort to stock Louisiana produce when possible.

The cynic in me says that even if the powers that be at this farmers’ market knew for a fact that the vendor was cheating, nothing would happen, he’d still be there. Unless you had proof and made a fuss. If the vendor is a linchpin in the success of the market, they don’t want to lose him, even if he’s cheating.

I haven’t been to the major farmers’ market in my city for years — it’s downtown and way too crowded and crazy for me — but I remember being told outright that some muskmelons had come from two states away. I guess market standards and rules vary widely. I go to the smaller markets around the edges of the city; the variety isn’t as great, but at then you know you’re getting what the locals can grow at the moment!