The N&R reports Browns Summit farmer Mike Faucette is suing the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market over his suspension from the market. At issue is whether or Faucette’s produce is ‘locally grown’:
“They could have asked him, for example, ‘Give me that squash,’” Faucette’s attorney Seth Cohen said. “There’s got to be someone who can say whether that squash could be grown there or not. And they never did anything like that. They just said, ‘I don’t think he grew it.’?”
William Wickliffe, Guilford County director for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service said that forensic analysis might provide some clues to where a plant came from if some dirt were on it.
However, he said he doesn’t know of any specific tests to determine a plant’s origin.
Don’t know what it’s like in other cities, but –hard to believe I know –we’ve got farmers market politics here in Greensboro. The Rhino’s John Hammer –a regular at the Farmers Market (I run into him there all the time) — has written extensively about those politics and believes Faucette Produce —along with Gann Farms — are being forced out because they opposed the contract awarded to Greensboro Farmers Market Inc., the group that runs the market.
