Farmer's market selloff!

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

"The produce is fresh, the prices are good, and it's convenient," was Dania Brown Leslie's assessment as she struggled with at least five bags laden with farm produce and a notebook and pen to keep track of her purchases, while still checking for bargains.

Of course, the fact that Friday's farmer's market was being held in the walkway between Sagicor Bank (where she works) and the Jamaica Tourist Board building in New Kingston, St Andrew, had influenced her decision to cash in on the bargain prices on the variety of goods on offer by farmers from as far afield as Yallahs, St Thomas.

Another person who, in fact, delayed her shopping by a day to check out the Maggi Farmer's Market was Corrine Kameka, who had already finished shopping by 9:30 a.m. and was waiting to be picked up.

"Irish (potato), pumpkin, banana (green), carrot, cho cho, and those things," she declared were among the items in her shopping basket.

Rennie Ramlal, who works in one of the buildings nearby and had read a flier about the farmers' market there, regretted delaying his shopping trip some three hours after the official start.

Between selecting items, he told The Gleaner: "I wish I was here earlier because somebody told me they were here at around 6:30 this morning, and there was a lot more stuff. A lot of stuff has already gone. There is still some good stuff left, but it would have been a lot better."

Jennifer Thompson, who works at Paymaster, summed up her savings in three words, "time and money". She had enjoyed some "good, good prices" while doing the shopping usually done on a Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, vendor Maxine Fender-James and son, Ackeem Grant, were sitting beside a near-empty stall, as she 'picked' some gungo. When The Gleaner enquired about their good fortune, she had a message for the organisers. "I wouldn't mind them have it every month or every two months (because) it is such a good thing. Now I come and get the experience, I know exactly what to prepare for another time," she declared.

Fender-James added, "I bring oranges, grapefruit, green banana, ripe banana, plantain, gungo peas, yam, cho cho, (and) everything just fly weh with the wind. At 6:00 o'clock this morning when I looked at my stall, I was saying it seems like nothing is going on, and by seven, eight o'clock everything was almost gone."

Meanwhile, Cleveland Charles, counsellor, political economic affairs at the United States Embassy, who is actively involved in promoting the work of women farmers in rural Jamaica, welcomed the oppor-tunity to interact with some of them and definitely enjoyed himself in the process.

"I'm very impressed, it's like a fair," he admitted.

"I would hope they could have something like this every week, I think a lot of people would take advantage of meeting with farmers and buying fresh, and I like the energy of the farmers themselves."