News

Farmer market certification increasing

Professional certification for farmers market managers is expanding in the Great Lakes.

The Michigan Farmers Market Association offers certification courses to meet the growing demands of market managers.  The program is the only one in the nation to recognize managers as professionally trained.

Executive Director Dru Montri says interest in the program has extended beyond Michigan.

“We have now certified more than 100 market managers here in the state of Michigan and we’re also working to expand that by offering satellite campuses in other states.”

She tells Brownfield, a satellite campus was offered in Wisconsin earlier this year and she anticipates more offerings across the county.  Managers have also been certified in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Michigan is home to more than 300 farmers markets, the third most in the nation.

Montri also expects wild foraged mushrooms to be an additional product area thanks to another certification program new this year.  “I think it’s a really exciting opportunity to have about 20 species of Michigan mushrooms that can now be foraged and sold at farmers markets.”  More than 80 foragers were certified in the first year of the Wild-foraged Mushroom Identification Program.

AUDIO: Interview with Dru Montri (5:15 mp3):