History
The current concept of a farmers' market is similar to past concepts, but different in relation to other forms – as aspects of consumer retailing, overall, continue to shift over time. Similar forms existed before the Industrial age but, were often part of broader markets, where suppliers of food and other goods gathered to retail their wares. Trading posts began a shift toward retailers who sold others' products more than their own. General stores and grocery stores continued that specialization trend in retailing, optimizing the consumer experience, while abstracting it further from production and production's growing complexities.
Modern industrial food production's advantages over prior methods are largely based on modern cheap, fast transport and limited product variability. But transport costs and delays cannot be completely eliminated. So, where distance strained industrial suppliers' reach, where consumers had strong preference for local variety, farmers' markets remained competitive with other forms of food retail. Recently, consumer demand for foods that are fresher (spend less time in transit) and foods with more variety -- has led to growth of farmer's markets as preferred food-retailing mechanisms.
Read more about this topic: Farmers' Market
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“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)