Rain washes out SLO Downtown Farmers’ Market again
The rain that hammered the Central Coast on Thursday also washed out the Downtown San Luis Obispo Farmers’ Market, again.
While local farmers welcome the much needed rain, the cancelation of another Thursday night market is a financial hit for growers who rely on the event to sell their perishable goods and produce.
{“html”:”n&#lt;iframe width=” 480″ height=”270″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/wt1qB-a1ctw?feature=oembed” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”&#gt;&#lt;/iframe&#gt;n”,”url”:”https://youtu.be/wt1qB-a1ctw”,”author_url”:”https://www.youtube.com/user/KEYTKCOYKKFXNews”,”thumbnail_width”:480,”provider_name”:”YouTube”,”type”:”video”,”thumbnail_height”:360,”version”:”1.0″,”title”:”Rain washes out SLO Downtown Farmers Market again”,”author_name”:”KEYT – KCOY – KKFX News”,”provider_url”:”https://www.youtube.com/”,”height”:270,”width”:480,”thumbnail_url”:”https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wt1qB-a1ctw/hqdefault.jpg”}
Whenever it rains on a Thursday night, the downtown Farmers’ Market in San Luis Obispo is always canceled mainly for public safety reasons.
And rain it did in downtown, steady and heavy at times.
The lack of foot traffic made for a quiet night for downtown shops, restaurants and bars.
The rain did not wash out the Morro Bay Farmers’ Market earlier in the day on Thursday which also has a loyal following.
“I make soup for a living and so its kind of one of those things that everybody wants in the rain”, says Stephanie Burchiel who sells vegan soups at the Morro Bay Farmers’ Market, “so I come on down, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Right at the end there’s usually a couple of people that no matter what they’re going to be here you know”, adds Nathan Glazebrook who sells organic dairy products at the Morro Bay Farmers’ Market, “they just know, they depend on certain food.”
Farmers’ Markets have become an important economic component for Central Coast agriculture, especially for smaller, organic growers that must bring their perishable products to market on time or suffer the loss.
“This stuff just came out of the cow yesterday”, Nathan Glazebrook says about his organic milk, “so it needs to get to the consumer in two or three days.”
“Most of the farmers that are here they depend on Farmers’ Market”, says Peter Jankay who is Executive Director of San Luis Obispo County Farmers’ Market Association, “several of them go to maybe 8 or 9 Farmers’ Markets in a given week, but this is their livelihood.”
Still, its hard to complain about the rain amid California’s historic drought.
“You can kind of just see the relief on the farmers faces when the rain is coming down and the attitudes are really good even though there’s not a whole lot of customers in the market”, Stephanie Burchiel says, “but at least they know their crops are getting watered.”
The San Luis Obispo Downtown Association says the annual Snow Night for Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market this time of year has been postponed to January 12, 2017.