Walking down Main Street on a Saturday morning, there’s something special about the Moscow Farmers Market. The community is reflected in the smiling faces of the young and old walking by all of the unique booths that line the street.
Typically, Moscow’s market will rank first in the state and region, but this year, Boise’s Farmers Market took its place. Boise ranked first in the state and region and third in the nation while Moscow took second, third and eleventh place.
Amanda Argona, community events manager for Moscow, explained that these rankings are not based on outsiders but instead rely solely on the votes and reviews left by patrons of each market.
“The rankings are actually based on the people,” Argona said. “It’s based on voting from your customers and patrons and loyal followers that the markets have built up over the years.”
Last year there were Instagram campaigns with interactive hashtags that helped promote voting for the market. But this year, votes, endorsements and reviews were partially reliant on those and promotional efforts.
“We issued a press release for folks to be aware,” Argona said. “We did some specific social media campaigning, We had a sign at our market, and I think it’s actually pretty indicative of how successful our market has been.”
The American Farmland Trust has hosted this contest for years now to encourage people to support their local food sources and ask the public, “who is the best?”
Because voting is up to the people, the markets with bigger followings typically rank higher. Moscow’s market has been around since the ‘70s and because Moscow is a college town that was also recently deemed the best city to raise a family, they have quite a large following.
This historic market is nearing 50 years of operation, with fresh and local produce, arts and crafts, and every unique product in between.
“Moscow has been the number one market in Idaho and in the top ten of the region for a really long time,” Jamie Hill, chair of Moscow Farmers Market Commission, said. “Those who have been to (the market) know that it’s pretty special, and if you’ve been to more than one market, you recognize that ours is…awesome!”
Even with COVID-19, Moscow’s market managed to stay open at varying degrees throughout lockdown from May through October, starting out online and ending up with a socially distant, masked market.
“The vendors who usually participate would put what they had available online, and then people would just go to City Hall Saturday morning, drive up, get it put in their trunk and go so it was all contactless,” Hill said. “You paid online, you order online. ”
After about a month of online sales, the market transitioned to limited capacity in person. Multiple barriers were set up and commission members watched both the single entrance and few exits in June, counting the exact number of patrons in order to maintain a safe capacity.
With the limited capacity, only 100 guests were allowed at once when in typical years vendors would see about 10,000 in a week, according to Hill.
After a few weeks of the limited capacity, the commission decided to open up with the regulations that are still enforced today.
Remember to share your experience on https://markets.farmland.org/market/moscow-farmers-market/. Voting for 2021 should begin in June.