The non-profit Oxford Community Market opened yesterday for its fifth season with a Season Kick-Off Market at the Old Armory Pavilion from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. featuring the most vendors in its history selling local, fresh food from counties all over North Mississippi, which ranged from Pontotoc to Lafayette county. Music from the Kit Thorn Band and Luke Fisher could be heard over the voices of the Oxford community enjoying the beautiful day and getting to know their local farmers.
The Oxford Community Market (OXCM), formerly known as Oxford City Market when it was owned by the city, provides fresh produce according to the season — ranging from leafy greens and strawberries in the spring to fresh watermelon and ice cream in the summer — every Tuesday from April 17- December 18 for Oxford citizens and restaurants. It also provides kid activities and cooking demonstrations throughout the season.
The market has three new vendors joining the team this season including Delta Blue Rice, selling farm to table rice from Ruleville, Mississippi, Sweet Gypsy Creamery, making homemade, artisan ice cream from Oxford and Home Place Pastures, selling fresh pasture raised meat from Como, Mississippi.
Sweet Gypsy Creamery owner, Bekah Chapman, takes ingredients like milk and cream from the farmer’s market vendors, like Browns Dairy Farm, to put into her ice cream. Currently, she features flavors like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, lemon and honey-peanut butter, but she is hoping to soon create a mint and tomato ice cream as well.
“Local to us is a big deal,” Chapman said. “Knowing your farmer equals knowing your food. With us, we’re not selling a produce or a fruit, but we’re selling a product, and I want to know what’s going into it.”
This is Chapman’s first year at the market as a vendor, but she was inspired to start her own business last year when she was a volunteer and fell in love with the market. She knew she could not grow anything, but found her niche in making ice cream.
“I know how hard these farmers work and it is incredibly labor intensive, so being able to promote their products and,at the same time, sell something that I believe in is pretty cool,” Chapman said.
Chapman plans to have a ice cream truck running soon, and will post where it will be located throughout the Oxford area on their Facebook page.
Les and Sherry Driggers started 7D Farm in Water Valley, Mississippi after finding out their five adopted children had significant dietary needs, so they changed their lifestyle from living in the suburbs to buying a 40 acre farm in order to make food that their children could eat.
“Bread is one of the dirtiest things out there,” Driggers said. “A lot of the preservatives that they put in bread to keep it shelf stable so that we can go and pick it up at the grocery store and last several days at home is not even considered food grade, and we eat that on a regular basis.”
The Driggers grow whole grains on their farm and also make baked goods. They have sold their products for ten years in the Water Valley and Oxford area, and they have been with the OXCM since they began. 7D Farm is partnering with Home Place Pastures this season to sell pasture raised beef, pork and lamb, as well.
“If you know the person that’s growing your food and preparing your food, you know how healthy it is, how it was raised, how it was harvested and packaged,” Sherry Driggers said. “They can tell you from beginning to end what that process was, and a lot of us have lost that connection with our food.”
The market director, Betsy Chapman, has only one requirement for the vendors- all that is sold at the market has to be grown and produced by the people who are selling it.
“It’s a unique opportunity to really know where your food is coming from,” Chapman said. “[The market] provides an opportunity for people to learn more about local agriculture and ask all of those important questions that consumers want to know about growing practices, how animals are treated and how workers are treated.”
According to OXCM’s “about” page on their website, the OXCM is a certified farmer’s market dedicated to providing access to healthy, local, affordable food to local and regional members of the community to battle the food insecurity problem in Mississippi. OXCM allows the consumer to make relationships with their farmers and provide awareness to maintain a sustainable environmental system.
Mississippi struggles with a food insecurity rate of 22 percent, according to the Mississippi Insecurity Food Project, which is above the US average of 14 percent.
“It feels good to know who your farmers are and, you know, we need that kind of relationship with our food,” Chapman said. “When it’s not a chore to prepare a meal, it’s a joy, so that’s one of the messages we hope to get across.”
Greenwood, Mississippi native, Beth Stevens, came to market for the first time after hearing about it from her children who attend the university. She also operates a Greenwood farmer’s market and wanted to see and get ideas from the Oxford market.
“Everybody should support their local farmers market,” Stevens said. “I mean Kroger’s good, but that’s the thing about farmer’s markets is that they’re a supplement to a grocery store. You get what you need at the market and go finish it off at the grocery store.”
A group of local chefs from well-known restaurants in the Oxford area — Snackbar, Oxford Canteen, Grit, Ravine and Tarasque Cucina — partnered with OXCM to create the first Market Feast to benefit OXCM, last night. Local Oxford chefs support the market every week, buying for themselves and creating relationships with the farms. They have created a special menu for the feast’s guests.
By Ally Langston
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