Farm Vendors Mark Fifth Year At KCC
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Del.icio.usThe Farmers Market at Kapiolani Community College is now 5 years old - an achievement noted by a state proclamation Nov. 8 as regular customers picked through potatoes and papayas from fresh off the field in the college parking lot.
Where only a dozen vendors began the venture in 2003, the market draws an average of 60 vendors every Saturday from 7:30 to 11a.m. Ten of the original 12 still participate, including Hiraoka Farms, Chinen Farms and Nalo Farms.
“It started as a community-based market with lots of local customers,” said Eleanor Nakama-Mitsunaga of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation. “In the past two years, it has exploded to becoming a tourist destination to a large Japanese clientele. People have discovered it through the grapevine. We really haven’t done an advertising campaign; it’s really through word of mouth that the market has grown in popularity.”
New vendors from farther away include Big Island Abalone and Big Island Bees.
Festivities marking the anniversary even drew Gov. Linda Lingle to the market to recognize the HFBF achievement in partnership with KCC’s culinary school, the state Agriculture Department and UH College of Tropical Agriculture.
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