Our purpose: To engage the Gunter community by increasing awareness and access to healthy local food and culture while preserving South Grayson County's unique agricultural heritage. To some, it means making sure people living on fixed incomes have access to adequate amounts of nutritious food. To others, the term relates to threats to our food supply such as contamination, disease, or acts of te
rrorism. Still to others the term, food security, means considering where a town or region obtains its food supply and taking actions to increase the amount of food grown locally to decrease reliance on food imported or shipped from long distances. Regardless of which view of food security is in issue, farmers’ markets are playing critical roles in addressing the concerns. Farmers’ markets play a leading role in making fresh nutritious food available at affordable prices to people with limited incomes. The number of markets operating in neighborhoods where residents live on fixed incomes is proof of this role. In fact, in many major cities farmers’ markets operate in neighborhoods where no grocery stores remain, making them critical sources of fresh food. In this age of new concerns about intentional threats to food safety and security, farmers' markets offer a very local and widespread alternative to our nation’s increasingly concentrated – and vulnerable – food and grocery distribution system. Because food sold at farmers’ markets is locally grown and usually sold unprocessed, the food is safer because fewer hands have touched it, and it is fresh so there are fewer concerns about storage and handling. By connecting local farmers with consumers, farmers’ markets can help increase the security and ability of communities and regions to produce their own food supplies. By putting consumers into direct contact with local farmers, the markets are an important source of education and communication about farming and food safety issues.
