The mobile market involves pre-paying for one or more shares, which represent a part of a week's harvest. Items vary by week and farmer.
Fresh Fruit and Veggies Available from the Duke Mobile Farmers Market
Durham, NC -- Mark Kitchens traded potato chips for cucumbers as a snack, thanks to the Duke Mobile
Farmers Market. He signed up for the first mobile farmers market in the spring of 2006 because he wanted to eat more vegetables
and support local growers.
A supervisor for Duke Technical Services, Kitchens was so pleased with his experience that he decided to once again buy shares from
a local farmer's crop during the next year's mobile farmers market.
Employees can sign up for the mobile market now by calling or e-mailing one of the participating
farmers.
The mobile market, which is managed by LIVE FOR LIFE, Duke's employee health promotion program, involves pre-paying for one or more
shares, which represent a part of a week's harvest. Items vary by week and farmer. Farmers bring their products, already boxed, to the
Sarah P. Duke Gardens or to Durham Regional Hospital from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays for pick up.
"You can literally drive up right next to your farmer, get out, get your box and go on your way," said Kitchens, who bought shares
last year from Brinkley Farms of Creedmoor.
Duke's market is the first of its kind at a university, said Theresa Nartea, agribusiness and marketing specialist for the Cooperative
Extension Program at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University.
Nartea helped launch the first workplace community supported agriculture in 2002 in Research Triangle Park. She helped LIVE FOR LIFE
create Duke's market.
"The mantras of 'food with a face' and 'farm to table' are resonating with our society," Nartea said. "The mobile market serves as a
touch-and-feel wellness program that can inspire other large workplaces to be a link between local farms and their employees."
Kitchens paid $13 a week for his share, comparable, if not cheaper than buying similar produce in a grocery store. And it's fresher.
"The cucumbers had a texture that was far superior to anything I've ever gotten in a grocery store," he said.
The mobile market is also beneficial for farmers such as Bonnie Williams who runs Belle-Lark Farms with her family in Sanford. Williams
had 17 customers at Duke last year, but she has expanded farm production to take 30 customers this year.
"It's nice when you can sell everything that you grow," she said. "The more we sell, the more encouraged we are to grow."
By Elizabeth Michalka
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