The recent public forum concerning the purchase of 150 Nichols St. for historic preservation, public access, and a permanent farmers market revealed strong support within the community, but also some very important questions from community members. Most of these questions, such as parking, have been discussed in the pages of the Journal and other newspapers.

But I’m hearing concerns that the Nichols project represents a “subsidy” to a small special-interest group — local farmers — and I wanted to add some perspective to this concern.

The idea, as I understand it, is that helping local farmers and producers build a market for their goods gives them an unfair advantage over businesses that rent commercial real-estate and establish storefronts. This would be true only if vendors at the permanent farmers market will pay less for their vendor stalls than a comparable storefront rental in Friday Harbor. To help understand whether this is the case, here are some estimates, based on informal surveys of downtown businesses. The goal here is to break down costs so that we can compare them in an apples-to-apples manner. I’ve chosen to do this by examining the fully-burdened cost per-square-foot, to occupy a retail location on an hourly basis in Friday Harbor.

Since farmers markets are less than a full day on Saturdays and Wednesdays, an hourly comparison per square foot places both types of businesses on an equal footing.

Obviously, rental rates for commercial storefronts in Friday Harbor vary considerably. But discussions with a number of business owners in different buildings seem to indicate that rents and lease fees (inclusive of various costs like payments in lieu of property taxes, insurance, utilities) range between $1 and $2 per square foot, per month. If we assume that a business is open an average of 40 hours per week (some are open much more, some less), that’s 160 hours per month. This means, per square foot, for every hour open to the public, a commercial storefront costs an average of $0.013. That’s 1.3 cents per hour for every hour open to the public.

In the current design for the permanent farmers market, vendor stalls are 7 feet by 8 feet, or 56 square feet. Each stall (a vendor can rent more than one stall) costs the vendor $10 per three-hour market day; arts and crafts and prepared food vendors pay $20 for their stalls. This means, per square foot, for every hour open to the public, a farmers market stall costs $0.06 (6 cents) per square foot per hour for a farmer, and $0.12 (12 cents) for a prepared food or craft vendor.

Both retail shops and small farmers have other costs associated with their businesses, of course. Retail shops have employee expenses, inventory, and advertising, to name but a few. Farmers have seed costs, fertilizers and/or equipment, often labor costs for employees or internships, again to name but a few. But the point is that the cost of renting the retail sales space in downtown Friday Harbor will be several times greater for farmers than the typical storefront rental costs: 4 to 9 times greater. Hardly an unfair competitive advantage for farmers, especially when we consider the low margins and high production costs associated with farming.

But if we step back from the financial details for a moment, the greater question lies in whether public support for a farmers market constitutes a subsidy, or instead is appropriate public support for commerce and business. I’ve heard it said that farming is a “special interest” and that the public should not be in the business of giving funds to special interests to help them do business. In the back of our minds, we might be thinking of the long history of “farm subsidies” where farmers are paid to grow certain crops, or at worst, paid NOT to grow crops. It’s right to be leery of this type of “help” for farmers.

The current project is nothing like that. Towns exist, in large part, to help concentrate businesses of all types so that customers and suppliers can come together efficiently and share the burden of common infrastructure. Private businesses don’t have to worry about constructing their own roads, or managing water supplies, and as we’ve heard throughout this process, parking is also common, shared infrastructure. In many ways, the public supports and “subsidizes” all businesses by maintaining and creating infrastructure. In other words, the business of a town is to help create markets for local businesses.

What the permanent farmers market project does, using a combination of public funding and private fund-raising, is to create a stronger, better market for local agriculture. It does not give anyone a “handout,” since we’re actually asking vendors to pay more for their space, per square foot per hour, than the current averages for commercial real estate in Friday Harbor.

We’re not paying anyone to grow anything, we’re not handing money to farmers, we’re encouraging commerce and capitalism in the best traditions of those words. We’re saying, as a rural community with a long history and tradition of agriculture, that we support farming in the best way possible: by encouraging farmers to grow their businesses by better marketing their products to local and visiting customers.

This really is a traditional and conservative way of fostering the growth of local agriculture — by encouraging growth, and supporting markets — rather than subsidizing individual farmers or providing handouts. Towns and local governments in this country have a long history of supporting common infrastructure for the countryside to bring its products to market. The proposed project to preserve, renovate, and use 150 Nichols St. as a location for the permanent farmers market is in the best tradition of town and rural partnership to foster economic growth.

Mark Madsen
San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild