Austin Fermentation Festival, Oct. 22

Get in touch with Austin Markets & Fermentation Festival:  marketing@texasfarmersmarket.org

(or buy tickets to the 2017 Festival, HERE)

Tell us about your organization, what do you do?

Texas Farmers’ Markets at Lakeline and Mueller are the only year-round, rain-or-shine, producer only markets in Austin, Texas. The markets are part of a non-profit corporation that aims to help Central Texas producers and consumers grow a sustainable food system!

Vendors at Fermentation Festival 2016 | Photo by Roxanne Rathge

What are you working on right now? What are you most excited about? 

Currently we are working hard to organize the 2017 Austin Fermentation Festival! Our Fermentation Festival is an educational event that celebrates all things fermented in Central Texas and will run from 10am – 4:30pm on October 22, 2017 at Barr Mansion.

The Austin Fermentation Festival includes a day of fermentation workshops including hands-on activities, keynote address by author and fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz, a community culture swap, fermented foods and product vendors, along with book sales, an artisan lunch and breakfast menu, fermented beverages, live music, a silent auction, and a mini farmers’ market! Proceeds from the event will benefit the Texas Farmers’ Market Farmer Emergency Fund, which allows us to offer financial assistance to farmers and ranchers in times of environmental, personal or other crisis. You can learn more about the festival, HERE, on our website.

Fermented sourdough bread | photo by Roxanne Rathge

Tell us how your organization got started & why.

The Texas Farmers' Markets at Lakeline & Mueller were founded by Carla Jenkins, our current Market Manager. In the following excerpt, she describes why our practices are so important to the integrity of our markets:

“Farm inspections are the best part of my job—ensuring what the farmers are growing is what they are actually offering for sale at the market and how they are advertising their farming methods is actually how their crops are grown. I love hearing the stories of each farmer, and I learn something new with each visit. With each visit I also find out more and more about how difficult it is to be a farmer in Central Texas.

My first farm inspection was at a farm southeast of San Antonio. We drove up to one of the fields, where a hoe lie next to the rows of potatoes; some already uncovered.

“How do you harvest these potatoes, Johnny?” I asked.

“With that hoe,” He said.

The field was at least an acre! I was shocked that he did not have a big tractor with an implement that dug potatoes or someone he paid to dig them. We traveled next to his watermelon field, which he explained had been eaten by wild hogs. From that day, I have continued to be amazed by what farmers and their families do to get food to our tables.

When farmers raise crops organically and sustainably, their efforts and costs often double or triple. Sometimes the bugs or weeds get the crop and they have to abandon it and start over. Farmers who use chemicals in their fields have the advantage of certainty and security—as do ranchers when they give hormones to their steers, adding weight more quickly on less feed. It’s extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to create the same products as the conventional farmers using organic practices. So, is it fair for farmers who use chemicals and those who don’t to compete at a farmers’ market? How do the organic growers make enough money for their smaller yields and the crops they have lost and had to replant?

The answers to these questions are complex. There is no way we have enough farmers in our area to require that they all grow with organic methods. Most that use chemicals use them only when absolutely necessary. If they do use chemicals, our practices dictate that they must be honest and transparent about it. We can only host vendors who are upfront when answering these kinds of questions.

Until we have more farmers in our 150 mile radius, we will bring farmers who use integrated pest control management (IPM) to our farmers’ markets to supply your demand. IPM is the selection and use of pest control actions that will ensure favorable economic, ecological and social consequences and is applicable to most agricultural, public health and amenity pest management situations. Make sure you personally support what is important to you, be it local, organic, sustainably grown, lower prices, conventionally grown, or uniform appearance. Your demand is what will drive our farmers’ market future.”

As the only producer-only verified market group in town, our policies are strict, so we can assure that vendors are honestly bringing the fruits of their labors and using the practices they tout to shoppers. Please continue to ask questions of your farmer/rancher to understand who is farming sustainably at all times and who relies on integrated pest management and why and how they may use herbicides or pesticides.

Make your own sourdough starter | photo by Roxanne Rathge

Fermentation taste-test | photo by Roxanne Rathge

What's your favorite vegetable to eat, grow, or wear?

These days I am really into okra! Before moving to the south I had only ever eaten okra two ways, either deep fried or in a slimy side dish. But after living down here for a number of years, I have learned how versatile and delicious okra is! You can pickle it, roast it, sauté it, cream it, and more. It is also such a great workhorse vegetable, available throughout the hot Texas summer. Sometimes it feels like okra can grow when not much else can. Plus, okra plants and flowers are beautiful and so unique!

Anything you want us to help you spread the word about?

Come one, come all, to the Austin Fermentation Festival 2017! It is great event to that truly brings the Texas fermentation community together. Austin's local NPR station KUT recently ran a wonderful profile of the event on Field & Feast. If you have a moment, you can give it a listen, HERE.