Note: This was written in June 2024. In 2025, the Barrie Farmers Market underwent a change for the better. The vendors seem happier, there is a far better mix, and there are actual farmers, producers, and growers mixed in among the artisans. I love it there once again and recommend it to anyone in the area who wants fresh, beautiful food and wants to support local!
Key points
Yeah, this is a long post, so here’s a cheat sheet for you 🤪
💜 I’m very hopeful for positive changes to revive market’s identity. 💪 Farmers’ markets are vital for strong urban community and local agriculture. 🫤 The Barrie Farmers’ Market is shifting away from its original purpose. 🔍 The removal of key vendors underscores the issue. 🤐 A lack of transparency and communication from organizers is harmful to trust. ❓ Organizers should reflect on market’s origins and priorities.
Suggestions for improvement: 👉Ensure half of sellers are local growers, producers, and farmers. 👉Improve transparency by addressing customer inquiries openly.
The urban agricultural connection
To anyone who has been keeping up with my social media posts or these blogs (hi Mom!), it’s no big surprise that I’m a huge fan of farmers’ markets. I have a favourite market that I attend every week in the summer, I visit the Barrie Farmers’ Market year-round, and I even try to find markets when I’m out of town on vacation (for anyone in the Fort Erie, Ontario area, the Ridgeway Farmers’ Market is spectacular!).
Everything changes, including local farmers’ markets
There’s a reason that my favourite farmers’ market is my favourite. It’s focused on local growers and producers of fruits, vegetables, beef, pork, honey, and maple syrup, with a great supporting lineup of artisans making products such as baked goods, sauces and preserves, soaps, jewellery, and so on.
I love the people there and look forward to greeting them and catching up with them each week. This routine and relationship was an important part of breaking through some of my biggest social anxiety challenges, as I described in my blog post “A Socially Anxious Author and a Local Farmers Market” back in 2022.
That market has changed a lot over the years. It changed locations at one point, some vendors have come and gone, and it even adopted a new day of the week and later hours this year. Regardless, at its core, it’s still a centre for locally grown and raised foods, with some great options for gift buying on the side.
When the change is bigger than that…
Then, there’s the Barrie Farmers’ Market. I’d like to preface what I’m about to say by pointing out that I remain a big fan with huge hopes for this market’s future. I often go with my father, and it’s a time I love spending with him. Farm-to-table is kinda our thing.
Since 1846 – yeah, you heard me – the Barrie Farmers Market in Ontario has been standing as a cherished community hub. It’s a place where locals have been able to connect with the farmers, growers, and producers who put fresh, wholesome food on our tables. It’s been a symbol of community spirit, embodying the culture of supporting local agriculture and fostering direct relationships between producers and consumers.
However, over the last year or so, the Barrie Farmers Market has been drifting away from its original purpose, becoming increasingly dominated by artisans and craftspeople at the expense of the very farmers it was meant to support. The market is clearly proud of its history, a regular theme in their social media posts, but the experience today is noticeably unlike what it was even a couple of years ago, let alone five or so years ago.
Why I noticed the difference
What recently put this change in the spotlight for me was what I can only assume was an expulsion of PJ’s Meats and Thorganic Farms. Both vendors have been integral to the market’s reputation for offering high-quality, locally sourced food products. Their removal has sparked concern among loyal marketgoers who worry that the market is losing its foundational agricultural roots.
I first heard about this issue through a post on Thorganic Farms’ Facebook page that simply stated that they wouldn’t be at the Barrie Farmers’ Market anymore, so they were welcoming people to visit their own farm store (which is awesome, by the way, I highly recommend checking it out. Say “hi” to Bear and Daisy the dogs for me if you see them wandering around outside before you head in). I promptly commented on a Barrie Farmers’ Market post, asking if this was a temporary absence or if the organic beef vendor would be back in time for Canada Day shopping.
My posts (and 2 others) on May 31, 2024 – all of which were promptly removed. As you can see, my post was a respectful inquiry, and the other posts were pointing out that there had already been comments removed. This was what made me monitor the removals in the first place, and why I screencapped my own comment The link I shared in my comment was to the place where I’d learned about the removal of Thorganic Farm. That post was respectful and said nothing negative about the Barrie Farmers’ Market. I shared it as my source. Please find it here if you’d like to read it: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/veM1DF9FrxJaU4DJ/
To my astonishment, my comment was removed within minutes. As were dozens of others that I watched pop up and disappear over the hours that followed. I was baffled. These were not angry or aggressive comments. They were inquiries into what had happened or if we would be seeing those vendors again. Mine said:
“Just heard about local meat vendors being asked to leave. Is it just a thing for this week or is it permanent? Will they be back in time for Canada Day shoppers? https://www.facebook.com/share/p/veM1DF9FrxJaU4DJ/“
It doesn’t feel like a local farmers’ market anymore
Barrie is growing fast, but it’s features like the Barrie Farmers’ Market that help to hold on to that sense of community, togetherness, and supporting local that are vital to what makes this city such a wonderful place to live. We’re so lucky to have all the advantages of urban life without having to drive more than a few minutes in any direction to reach farmland.
After all, it lets us have a direct relationship with the people who grow and raise the food we eat. With everything going on in the corporate grocery world right now, having a market like this in place is a beautiful way to benefit customers, who get access to fresh, local produce, while also supporting local farmers by giving them a fairer share of the profits – money that will then be spent within our own community.
However, the increasing presence of makers, artisans, and craftspeople has altered the market’s landscape. While these vendors add diversity and charm, their overwhelming presence has overshadowed the core agricultural mission of the market. And now the producer side is down some more, without PJ’s Meats and Thorganic Farms.
Cutting into that feeling of community even further is the Barrie Farmer’s Market’s troubling approach to transparency and communication. As I mentioned earlier, customers who have respectfully voiced their concerns on social media have found their comments hidden instead of addressed with an equal respect.
Direct messages to the market’s organizers are often met with evasive responses, or worse, directed back to the vendors themselves, many of whom are constrained by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). This lack of transparency is frustrating to me as a customer, and I can only imagine the pressure it’s placing on the vendors, who risk breaching NDAs if they attempt to clarify the situation, even though the market is directing the customers to them for that very reason.
Hoping for a change to restore the Barrie Farmers’ Market
I’m hoping that this situation at the Barrie Farmer’s Market is just a rough patch that has dragged out a bit longer than expected. I have my fingers crossed that they are working on resolving whatever struggles they’re facing in their shortage of farmers, and that they are rethinking the way they address customer inquiries.
To be frank, I don’t know how farmers’ markets are run and operated. As a local author, I’ve been a vendor at many markets in the region, but certainly haven’t been a part of the planning and organizing process. I’m not about to pretend that I think it would be simple. I know it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to make a community event look easy.
That said, without any transparency or willingness to communicate, with the active efforts being made to take down any questions on social media that do anything but applaud the current state of the market, and with an erosion of the number of farmers selling their products at the Barrie Farmers’ Market, I feel my enthusiasm to attend is shrinking. My trust in the market as a whole has been eroded. By going, I don’t feel as much like I’m a part of something bigger that is important to the area’s food production. That community link between myself and local food producers feels compromised.
The changes I’d love to see next
The essence of a farmers market lies in its ability to foster a symbiotic relationship between the community and its local growers, farmers, and producers. While artisans and craftspeople certainly have a place, their dominance should not come at the expense of the agricultural foundation. The market’s management needs to remember its roots and realign its priorities to support local farmers.
What I’d love to see is the following:
At least half the sellers should be local growers, producers, and farmers. That leaves tons of room for bakers, craftspeople, and other artisans, but creates the substance and purpose for the very name of farmers’ market instead of craft market or artisan market.
More transparency. Sure, there are posts on social media that should be hidden or deleted, but legitimate questions about the farmers’ market should not be among them. If customers are asking questions, it’s because they care. They’re passionate about their local market and the vendors they see every week. Failure to address those questions or – worse – eliminating them altogether, feels the same as asking someone in person and having them turn their back and walk away. It says, “I don’t care enough about you to bother with you”. That can’t possibly be the message the market means to send. I hope it won’t last.
The Barrie Farmers’ Market I love is losing its identity, but it’s far from too late. It’s time for the decisionmakers and organizers to take a step back and look at where the market came from and what it needs to be. Is it still to be a proud, historic part of our community that connects us with our local food producers while offering us the chance to check out what local artisans have to offer while we’re there? Or is it a craft market that is ready for a name change?
I’m hopeful that it won’t be long before I’m proudly shopping at a farmers’ market in Barrie once again. 💜
Julie B. Campbell is a Canadian fiction author and co-author (with Amanda Giasson) of the Perspective series books ("Love at First Plight", "Second Wind", "Third Time's a Charmer", and "So On and So Fourth"). Julie has also written children's books such as "The Elephant-Wolf" and "Finding Manda's Sunshine", as well as her most recent kids' title "An Ogre Ate My Sparkles!". She is a rosacea blogger and YouTuber under the name Rosy JulieBC.
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Julie B. Campbell 