To market, to market
Rice University Farmers Market offers a bounty to behold

BY TRACEY RHOADES
Special to Rice News

Rain or shine, hot or cold, the market is always open.

Well, every Tuesday from 3:30 to 7 p.m., that is. Since April 2007, the parking lot adjacent to Rice Stadium has been transformed from an expanse of asphalt into a field of greens — literally. Local farmers and small-business entrepreneurs, offering everything from environmentally safe bug repellent to soaps and lotions and organic meals for two, have become a regular fixture and a much-anticipated part of the Rice campus.

The market, which had been doing business in the parking lot of Christ the King Lutheran Church across the street from the stadium, outgrew its space and was invited by the university to move onto campus. In late 2010, after seven years as an independent, nonprofit organization, Houston Farmers Market Inc. became an official Rice entity and was appropriately renamed Rice University Farmers Market. While the name changed, what the market offers hasn’t, and market-goers continue to reap the harvest.

Carol ”CJ” Claverie, market manager, affirms that with the addition of the university’s resources, the market will continue to grow and improve. ”Having a farmers market on campus enriches the lives of students and community residents who have access to all the cultural resources of the fourth-largest city in the U.S. but may not experience the rural perspective represented by the food producers who come to the market every week,” Claverie said.

Typically between 200 and 500 people visit the market each week. Rice faculty, staff and students are regular patrons, but the market also draws people of all ages from the Texas Medical Center and surrounding neighborhoods. And many have grown accustomed and look forward to the seasonal delicacies the market offers.

Springtime provides succulent strawberries and bountiful flowers, and early summer brings corn on the cob and perfect peaches from the Boerger Farm in Wharton, Texas, and other area orchards. ”People new to the market are always surprised at what a tree-ripened peach tastes like,” Claverie said. ”Once they’ve had them, they line up to buy twice as many as the week before.” In fall and winter, cool-weather crops, including spinach, kale and Swiss chard, and root vegetables, such as turnips, carrots and beets, return to the market’s tables.

Weekly emails keep patrons abreast of the week’s featured items, and the organization’s website has a produce availability guide and recipes using available meats and in-season produce. An e-newsletter, also published weekly, provides readers with tips on a variety of topics, including how to store different types of vegetables, pictures of available products and news about upcoming musical entertainers, who often are on-site and complement the outdoor experience.

While Rice’s market appears to be like any other farmers market, Claverie points out that there is one major difference. ”The Rice Farmers Market is committed to being — first and foremost — a farmers market. We limit how many prepared food vendors there are,” Claverie explained, ”and to ensure that what is sold at the market is truly local and honestly represented, we personally visit farms.”

Market rules stipulate that everything has to be grown within 200 miles of campus. With the exception of one vendor from Mexia, Texas, vendors are, at most, located within a 60-mile radius. And most have established a following among customers.

”There is no greater reward to doing what I do than seeing the smiling faces of my loyal customers who come out every week to get a treat for themselves or pets,” said Stacey Bigley, owner of BarkyDogZ, which specializes in organic pet treats and homemade people treats. ”These actions speak louder than words, and that appreciation of my hard work and creativity makes my job so worthwhile.”

Having the market on campus has been a win-win for all. Consumers are supporting and sustaining the region’s foodshed, and vendors, particularly those maintaining small farms and ranches, are able to provide an additional educational opportunity about the agricultural products and services they provide.

This past year, Richard Johnson, director of sustainability at Rice, and Elizabeth Long, department chair and professor of sociology, co-taught a class in which students started a composting project. Working with Baker College chef Cari Clark and Bobby Atkinson, owner of Atkinson Farms, the largest farm producer in the Rice market, the students created the Farm-to-Fork program. The Baker College servery purchased food from Atkinson Farms, and while delivering the comestibles, Atkinson would take collected kitchen scraps back to his farm for composting.

The program was so successful it will expand to include Sid Richardson College and an additional servery this fall. It has put Rice in a leadership role in Houston as the first institutional buyer of local food and provided tremendous benefits for students, the environment and the local economy. ”The program certainly speaks to the synergy created by having a market on campus,” Claverie said. ”Students have become increasingly interested in where the food served in the colleges comes from, who grows it and how it’s grown, so the Farm-to-Fork program provides the perfect opportunity to actively engage with students and get them involved.”

Besides a plethora of homebaked goods, fruits, vegetables and a large variety of handmade cheeses, the market offers furry four-legged packages, too. In April 2009, True Blue Rescue, a nonprofit organization that finds homes for dogs rescued from shelters that euthanize unwanted animals, made its market debut. The only dog rescue located at a farmers market, True Blue has adopted out more than 200 dogs and is a popular and endearing attraction.

”A regular visitor to the market relayed a story to me one Tuesday that perfectly summed up our mission,” said Janice Blue, founder of True Blue. ”He said, ‘When I tell my kids that we are going to the market at Rice, they think that it’s a puppy market that sells fruits and vegetables.”’