Anchorage farmers markets return, with tight restrictions and hopeful vendors

Farmers markets in Alaska are slowly sprouting back to life as the economy reopens, with a smaller look, new safety guidelines and a renewed role amid supply concerns for some foods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For farmers like Arthur Keyes, organizer of the South Anchorage Farmers Market, it means taking steps to meet new virus-related health rules, atop the agricultural duties that already consume his life.

On Friday, he planned to help install mesh fencing to promote social distancing to prepare for the Saturday opening of the South Anchorage market. But first, he had to finish hauling onion transplants out of his greenhouse to prepare them for planting.

“This is a hard deadline,” said Keyes, who owns Glacier Valley Farm in Palmer. “You think the shortage of toilet paper was bad? If you don’t get food in the ground, there won’t be food.”

The South Anchorage Farmers Market and two others, the Center Market at the Midtown Mall and the Anchorage Farmers Market at 15th Avenue and Cordova Street, were open in Anchorage this weekend.

A fourth outdoor market, the downtown Anchorage Market, was holding a food truck event. The hundreds of arts and crafts booths that usually fill that market won’t be allowed until perhaps June, in a later phase of the city’s reopening, organizer Mike Fox said.

“The city was worried about the gathering size,” Fox said.

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Additional farmers markets statewide will soon open, said Robbi Mixon, head of the Alaska Farmers Market Association. Many plan to start in June as harvests begin for greens and other vegetables.

The vendors will face a challenging new landscape, without the masses of tourists that usually visit the state.

But they’re optimistic, Mixon said. The meat, vegetables and plant starters that farmers sell could be extra important this year. COVID-19 outbreaks at Lower 48 processing plants have led to meat shortages.

“We have a crucial role to play in normal times," she said. “But it’s especially important now."

Alaska farmers have responded to the crisis by enhancing online sales, she said.

And customers seem to be responding. The online food hub Mixon runs to support growers on the Kenai Peninsula experienced record sales last week, she said.

“People are wanting to support local businesses,” she said.

Open this weekend are:

• The South Anchorage Farmers Market, launching its season Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s off the Old Seward Highway at 11111 O’Malley Centre Drive.

• The Anchorage Farmers Market, open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. It launched last Saturday, at 15th Avenue and Cordova Street.

• The Center Market at the Midtown Mall (formerly The Mall at Sears). It’s open three days a week, on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., plus Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. It’s freshly returned to the mall, which reopened recently after closing due to the pandemic.

• The Anchorage Market, previously the state’s largest outdoor market, will be limited to about 20 food trucks. The season launches Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The market also will be open Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Find it at the corner of Third Avenue and E Street.

Dr. Bruce Chandler, Anchorage’s chief medical officer for disease control and prevention, said the markets have traditionally drawn big crowds. Alaskans will need to follow social distancing and other guidelines if they go, he said.

“If we’re out in the great outdoors with no one else around us, there’s no risk,” he said. “But in farmers markets, we tend to crowd together. I think there’s still potential to become infected.”

The city did not set numerical limits on crowd size at the markets, said Barry Piser, a spokesman with the Anchorage Health Department.

But farmers markets, deemed critical businesses last month, must follow rules designed to limit crowds.

Vendors can sell only food, potted plants or flowers. Prepared food must be carry-out only. Customers and sellers must keep 6 feet apart in line and wear face coverings, according to Anchorage guidelines.

Keyes said he has sent emails and made online posts encouraging households to send only one person to the South Anchorage market at a time.

There will be no live music, to discourage large crowds gathering. There should be about 10 vendors, down significantly from last year, he said. One vendor who had traveled to Oregon for the winter couldn’t return to Alaska because of COVID-19 travel concerns, he said.

“In years past, the market has been a hub of social activity,” said Keyes. “I expect the market will be not as crowded.”

But it has to open, to ensure farms can survive and support the state’s food supply.

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"We have to be geared toward helping people shop safely,” he said. “Booths will be spaced out. We’ll have sanitizer and hand-washing sinks. We’ll give people the safest shopping experience they can have.”

River Bean, organizer of the Anchorage Farmers Market, said his booth was extremely busy during its seasonal launch last Saturday. About six vendors opened up, selling starter plants, cut flowers and other products.

He taped the ground to indicate safe social distancing and installed signs explaining rules, among other steps.

He had trouble reaching city officials to clarify the rules before he opened, he said. But he tracked farmers markets in the Lower 48 to set safety protocols with his board of directors.

He wants to make sure no vendors, who interact with hundreds of customers, catch the virus.

“We take this risk because growing vegetables and plants is 100% of our income,” said Bean, owner of Arctic Organics farm near Palmer. “If we didn’t do it, we would simply have zero income.”

Restaurant closures during the pandemic halted sales of mixed salads and vegetables, he said.

“We have been hit very hard,” he said.

But he recently beefed up his website to boost online sales. The prepaid orders and prepackaged products reduced customer interaction at the market last weekend, he said.

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“It’s another way to minimize risk,” he said.

Alex Davis, owner of the Center Market, said the market had to leave the Midtown Mall for several weeks, after the mall closed in March.

But Davis and a handful of other vendors set up in the snow, in a parking lot near downtown Anchorage owned by a fellow grower.

“They always declared grocery stores essential, and food is essential," said Davis, who owns A.D. Farm in Palmer.

He has seen more online orders for his farm-raised meat and vegetables. He teamed up with a few other growers who lost their restaurant sales, adding their unused cucumbers, carrots and bean sprouts to a salad mix so everyone gets some income.

“I think with what’s happening in the national food supply chain, there’s a lot more interest in who has food locally,” he said.

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