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Local park and recreation agencies are ideal locations for farmers markets and other direct producer-to-consumer opportunities that advance local food systems. Park and recreation agencies play an essential role in connecting communities to fresh and healthy foods. Throughout the past few years, NRPA has supported the expansion of farmers markets in parks and recreation by developing toolkits and resources and supporting local communities in their efforts as they work to grow their markets with health equity and community at the center. To better support parks and recreation as centers of community wellness and food access, NRPA hosted a community of practice for farmers markets in parks and recreation.

Community of Practice

The Farmers Markets in Parks and Recreation Community of Practice (CoP) was an opportunity for agencies and organizations that support farmers markets in parks and recreation to connect and learn from peers, problem-solve market challenges, and receive assistance from cohort peers and industry experts. From June 2023 to May 2024, the CoP met monthly to guide a small cohort of 15 participants through community engagement and market expansion journeys, while centering equity within strategies and operations to ensure markets benefit a diverse network of consumers and farm and ranch operators. The cohort participants explored best practices, lessons learned and shared challenges around centering equity, shifting power structures and authentic relationship building, marketing and promotion strategies, and opportunities and challenges related to coronavirus (COVID-19) response and recovery.

Topics for the CoP were identified by the participants, with equity rising to the top as an ongoing theme. NRPA engaged representatives from the Farmers Market Coalition’s working group to join the CoP for four sessions to discuss the Anti-Racist Farmers Market Toolkit, which was developed by a group of Black food systems leaders and market managers to help offer ways for managers to put the concepts of anti-racism into practice and action within farmers markets.

Through the CoP sessions, participants were asked to share how the CoP has supported health equity within their markets. Participants shared similar expanded ideas, including:

Food Access Strategies – Offering SNAP and WIC benefit acceptance and assistance at the market ensures more community members have access to local, fresh produce. Hosting nutrition education and cooking demonstrations helped customers understand how to prepare and enjoy produce at the market.

Vendor and Entertainment Selection – Making conscious vendor and entertainment choices to expand diversity often leads to more diverse customers, which, in turn, brings even more diverse vendor applications.

Accessible Language and Marketing – Providing materials in different languages and ensuring multilingual staff members are available supports reaching diverse audiences and ensures equitable access to the market and information about available resources.

Building Community Through the CoP

The year-long CoP built community, with participants sharing that the CoP was critical in:

• “Reminding us that equity is everyone! It encouraged us to reach out to different populations to help them find health or for their health to be supported through local, fresh food.”
• “Hearing more validation regarding racial equity as it relates to markets. Hearing that we’re already doing some things well, but also hearing things we haven’t fully embraced will help us become even more equitable.”
• “Providing resources to promote health equity and a group of people to help support achieving health equity with new ideas and problem-solving.”
• “Giving us support if we wanted to enforce a change but weren’t sure how to do it.”

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Maureen Neumann is Senior Program Manager at NRPA.