Interview with Chandler Rosenburg

What is your job title? What does it entail?

I currently serve as the Utah Farmers Market Network Director. The role entails first and foremost, supporting Utah farmers market managers by providing resources and educational opportunities, facilitating networking opportunities and an annual Forum, and managing a 3 year farmers market data collection project. And of course, visiting Utah farmers markets!

What is the Utah Farmers Market Network?

The Utah Farmers Market Network came together in 2019 thanks to a USDA FMPP (Farmers Market Promotion Program) grant. For the first three years, the network was exploring how to best support Utah farmers markets and identifying critical gaps. This time around (2023-2025), the network’s focus is to support new and beginning market managers through education, networking, and the creation of a farmers market manager handbook; elevate farmers markets throughout the state to drive greater awareness and support; and, carry out a three-year farmers market data collection project.

Where would someone go to get more information about markets near them? 

Check out our farmers market directory on our website at utahfarmersmarketnetwork.org!

What drives your passion? 

I’ve been excited about food systems work since high school when I saw a documentary called A Place at the Table that links food insecurity and rising diet-related diseases with corporate control of the food system. Since 2017, I’ve been working in the local food system space--  first with Plant Based Utah, an organization started by healthcare providers who wanted to educate the community as well as other healthcare providers about the benefits of eating plants and using food as medicine rather than costly and often ineffective, intervention and pharmaceutical-based approaches. From there, I shifted my focus to the ways our food is being grown and started the Utah Food Coalition in 2021 to drive more awareness and support for sustainable local farming. I then took the role with the UFMN in early 2023.

What continues to drive my passion for this work is the immense change that food systems work can incite. Not only can shifting to a more sustainable local food system improve our health and the health of our planet, but it can also bring us back into community with one another and connect us more directly to the land — grounding we desperately need. I think in today’s polarized, digital world, connection to community and the places around us is so critical, and what better way to do this than around the celebration of beautiful, delicious, locally-grown food?

I also believe that access to food that nourishes our bodies without destroying the land, water, and soil we depend on is a fundamental human right. In today’s industrial food system, to eat is to pollute. The food we buy at the grocery store depends on fossil-fuel-heavy farming, long-distance transportation, and cheap and oppressive labor — while profiting the multinational corporations at the expense of farmers and eaters and the planet. We should be able to engage in the most basic human need —  eating — without destroying everything else around us.

What was the process behind getting this up and running?

The network began as a series of conversations among Utah farmers markets who wanted to network and learn from each other. In October of 2018, Utah State University (USU) was awarded a Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grant from the USDA to fund a variety of capacity-building, outreach, and marketing activities to help connect more low-income and ethnically diverse populations to healthy local food at farmers markets. The activities of the grant also provided the necessary support to formalize Utah’s statewide farmers market network.
In late 2022, USU was awarded a second FMPP grant to create a market manager handbook, a marketing campaign, and to gather community and economic impact data. 

In what ways do you see this making a difference? 

The network has provided such a crucial space for our state’s farmers market managers. Before the network was established, managers were left to navigate layers of bureaucracy and confusing regulations on their own. Farmers market management is SUCH a difficult and complicated role, and it’s been beautiful to see the ways in which the network has brought managers together and given them a space to learn from each other and connect about the ups and downs of market management with others who understand their experience. It’s also been great to see relationships develop between market managers and folks working at our state agencies like UDAF (Utah Dept. of Agriculture and Food) and the Department of Health. The stronger our relationships are, the stronger our food system will be! I also think the network serves as another important voice for local agriculture in Utah, especially small farmers and “specialty crops” (USDA’s term for fruits and vegetables). 

What is your favorite part about being involved with this project?

My favorite part has got to be visiting markets and engaging directly with Utah farmers.
I’m also incredibly inspired by our farmers market managers and their commitment to providing spaces that foster our local food economies and invite community. Farmers Markets are one of the only places in the state that connects consumers directly to producers and allows for a deepening of relationships in our local economy.

Why is supporting local food eating important?

Eating locally is often more sustainable (less dependent on fossil fuel inputs and transportation; more equitable because more of our food dollar goes directly to the producers; and, more delicious because we see a greater variety of foods that reach our tables soon after harvest.

As we experience increasing climate variability, agriculture will become more unpredictable and we’re going to be subject to supply chain disruptions like we saw during the COVID pandemic, so, it’s important that we shore up our local food system as much as possible and source food locally and regionally. The shorter the supply chain, the more resilient our food system will be.

The industrial, corporate-controlled food system that supplies our grocery stores is not only unsustainable in the way it uses up our soils, water, and land without efforts toward regeneration, but it’s also unjust. Only 15 cents of every dollar we spend at the grocery store goes to producers while the rest goes to the middlemen who market and distribute the food. Farmers are often exploited and are either trapped in cycles of debt or left without basic worker protections. By sourcing locally, we can ensure that more of our dollar goes directly to farmers.

In your own words, what do you hope to see happen with this project in the future?

Farmers markets are an important piece of the puzzle but they don’t work for every farmer or consumer. We need to start looking at how we can support markets for local agriculture on a more consistent, year-round basis. We also need to really prioritize support for local farmers or we won’t have markets in the future. Farmers are really struggling with access to land, water availability, and warming temperatures. As Utah continues to grow, we need to be sure that we preserve agricultural land and have pathways for new and beginning farmers to get into the business. I would love to see the network grow to include more advocacy for farmers and local food markets of all kinds (permanent infrastructure, food hubs that allow more local sourcing, etc.)