New Orleans' Hollygrove Market and Farm is like a farmers market, but without the farmers. Crates line two long tables shoved together in the middle of an otherwise bare concrete room. The customers don't choose their produce. Instead, they grab a cardboard box at the front of the market and pick the allotted number of fruits and vegetables displayed on a sign in front of each crate.

On a recent Saturday morning, the 500 customers who packed the market left with apples, satsumas, bell peppers, eggplant, okra, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and mustard greens, all for the fixed price of $25 per box. It's DIY meets CSA -- community-supported agriculture.

Only a year old, the small operation has made a name for itself throughout the city. Some of New Orleans' most famous chefs shuffle down the cafeteria-style line with the rest of the customers, gathering produce they will use in that week's menu. Most buyers are willing to go out of their way to pick up Hollygrove Market's organic or locally grown produce. "I come here every Saturday to get my produce for the week," said shopper Emily Crowley. "I like the fact that they choose your produce for you. It forces me to eat things I wouldn't normally, and it keeps me healthy."

But the founders of the market aren't completely satisfied. To them, their project is a way to encourage New Orleanians, especially those in the flood-ravaged, lower-income Hollygrove neighborhood, to not only eat healthier but also earn incomes by farming.

Crates of produce are set out every Saturday. Photos
by Catherine Lyons

The market seeks out urban and rural farmers within a 200-mile radius of New Orleans and buys their produce for the Saturday market. Currently, the market partners with seven urban growers, several of whom are longtime Hollygrove residents and a few newcomers, as well as more than 30 rural farmers. By buying locally, the money spent by all parties spurs the local economy and encourages growers to make farming a sustainable profession, said Ashley Locklear, the store manager of the Hollygrove Market and Farm, who started the market during her year as an AmeriCorps volunteer.

"This really is a collective," Locklear said. "I've heard statistics that say if you spend $1 in a local economy, that $1 turns into a total of $8 spent locally."

Hollygrove residents, however, compose only 10 to 15 percent of the weekly customers. The other buyers come from across the city to be part of the "buyer's club," or box-style market. But that format is what’s keeping the local residents away.

Hollygrove Market will add refrigerated
sections to its staples offerings later this
year.

Vance explained that for many people, the fixed price is out of their budget. They also prefer to buy exactly what they need and like, instead of a large box of varied produce. So in an effort to meet the original goal that began with an idea to convert a Katrina-devastated nursery into a market and garden, the Hollygrove Market and Farm is changing its look.

"We will be surveying our regular customers as well as the residents of the Hollygrove neighborhood to see what they like and what they want," Locklear said. "You have to figure out what sells and what doesn't. We want to always provide our customers with the basics."

Vance said the changing market style meshes better with its original mission to increase fresh produce in underserved neighborhoods.

"It's about community development, sustaining a community of growers but also sustaining a neighborhood," she said. "It's a community center more than a business."

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