GOOD IDEA: FARMERS MARKET IN SOUTHAMPTON

By Dan Rattiner

Southampton Village may have a farmers' market this summer. It's been proposed by Southampton Village Board member Bonnie Cannon, who believes that having such a market one day a week could encourage a healthier way of eating in town, not only by providing a place to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, but by showcasing the bounty of the region.

As proposed, the market would be set up in the parking lot in back of the Parrish Art Museum on Jobs Lane on Sunday mornings between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. and would be open to all.

There has been some objection to having this market, most notably by one storeowner who sells fresh vegetables and fruits in the town and feels that such a market will take away from his business. But I think these objections miss the point.

Southampton is the only community in the Hamptons that welcomes and, in fact, has several fast food drive-through restaurants. Up on County Road 39 (not far from this market), there is both a Burger King and a McDonald's, and both of them, every day, do a land office business. McDonald's and Burger King are not welcome in Sag Harbor or Westhampton Beach. In East Hampton, there is a law prohibiting the introduction of these restaurants.

America, as everybody knows, has become a nation of fatties. We have gotten that way due to the siren song of fast food, fried food, processed food and frozen TV dinners. We eat wrong. And we pay for it in child obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Probably 90% of America eats this unhealthy diet. Only 10% of America eats fresh food. It's just not on the landscape when the 90% drive their trucks and cars down the highways and byways of America.

The eastern end of Long Island has a great abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, grown on farms that are all over this community. To showcase them with a farmer's market on a Sunday morning is about as good an advertisement as you can get to encourage you to change how you eat. What might be lost because a farmer's market is "competition" to high end markets that sell fresh fruit and vegetables, as some opponents to the proposal say, will be more than made up by those who have up until now have ignored such fare, but will have gotten a taste of it behind the Parrish. Their interest in it will increase the revenue of those who sell it during the days when the farmer's market is not in session.

There is also something to be said for what a farmers' market says about a downtown. We've had such markets from time to time in Sag Harbor and in East Hampton. They serve not only as a refreshing outdoor oasis on a busy summer day, but also provide a happy family experience for neighbors meeting neighbors in a splendid outdoor setting. Indeed, farmers' markets change the look and feel of a community in terms of what that community is all about.

If a Southampton farmers' market can bring even 10% of the fast food consumers into the fold, they will have accomplished a great thing, not only for the health of the citizenry, but for the shops and supermarkets that feature fresh produce.

Southampton Village will decide later this month about this proposal. I hope that they approve it.

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