Farmers’ markets are sprouting up like, well, weeds in urban areas across the country. Some are wildly successful. Some never really get off the ground.
Local Harvest, a website representing small farms, notes that there are two million farms in the U.S, about 80 percent of them small, often family-owned, farms. The website also has a listing of small farms and farmers’ markets by zip code.
Local food fans point out that buying produce from community farmers’ markets offers much more than health benefits. “Tomatoes that are grown in California and shipped to Georgia are picked green,” says Barbara Petit, president of Georgia Organics, an organization dedicated to the promotion of locally grown food. “They are chemically ripened, and they are put on trucks that burn tons of gasoline to get them to us. From an economic standpoint, it doesn’t make sense. From a taste standpoint, well, I don’t know anyone who would argue that a tomato bought in a chain grocery store tastes remotely like one grown on a farm 20 miles down the road.”
What is it that makes some farmers’ markets succeed while others struggle? Good magazine, The Architect’s Newspaper, The Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, CO Architects and The Los Angeles Good Food Network asked “designers, architects, farmers, chefs, vendors, and farmers’ market shoppers to think about how good design can improve upon the modern farmers’ market experience.”
The charge: Design a new venue, product, distribution method, or marketing mechanism that increases both financial returns to farmers and access to healthy foods for consumers of all scales—from the home cook to food service chefs. Innovations should help small family farmers bring good food to market and/or provide consumers access to good food. The contest was specific to Los Angeles, but the winning entries are adaptable to virtually any urban area. Winners were announced on Sept. 3.
Mia Lehrer, Astrid Diehl and Zhihang Luo with Los Angeles-based Mia Lehrer and Associates turned in the winning entry – the Farm on Wheels, which uses electric vehicles to disperse fresh vegetables and fruits to underserved areas. Runners up included an urban farming center that incorporates production, distribution, processing and education; an “Urban Field Farm Stop” that uses the city’s mass transit network to distribute fresh food; and a hydroponic farm that harvests San Francisco’s storied fog to produce fresh produce.
A group of architects, urban planners, journalists, city leaders, chefs, and farmers judged the entries.

Farm on Wheels took top honors in the competition.