Using GIS for Siting Farmers Markets

Although urbanization has diminished the role of farmers’ markets in food provision in favor of wholesale stores, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in farmers’ markets. Now that local food is perceived as a fresher and more sustainable option than food from grocery stores, there has been a drastic increase in the number of farmers’ markets in the U.S. since the 1990s.

However, it is not easy for everyone to shop at farmers’ markets. Because farmers on small and medium-sized farms have only a limited amount of time to spend away from the farm, the markets are usually held only once a week for only a few hours and sometimes at inconvenient locations. Thus, many people find that these time and distance constraints prevent them from shopping at farmers’ markets rather than supermarkets.

While there have been many recent studies on the accessibility of farmers’ markets, operating times have largely been ignored as an obstacle for people. Instead, accessibility is measured in only distance or travel time from home. However, a new model using GIS has recently been developed to aid that address both spatial and temporal restraints, determining the ideal location and time for farmers’ markets in a certain area.

Researchers classify markets into those that operate on weekdays or weekends, and whether they operate in the morning, afternoon, or evening. They also classify customers into working and nonworking, which has enormous influence on when and where customers might shop. The models adjust travel distances by the time of day which determines whether people make their shopping trips from home, work, or other locations.

It was tested in Tucson, Arizona, where there are established farmers markets that have recently been encountering problems due to low patronage. After applying the models, researchers used GIS to create a map of the solutions, shown in Figure 3. This solution allowed 10% less travel than a solution that does not consider the time component.

However, more study is necessary - gathering more information from customers concerning their travels may show that weekend markets are favored. Finally, the revolutionary idea of adding a temporal component to GIS models is widely applicable. This type of model could be very useful for siting all kinds of services such as public transportation, day care, or banks.

Tong D, et al., Locating farmers’ markets with an incorporation of spatio-temporal variation, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences (2011), doi:10.1016/j.seps.2011.07.002