I will preface this by the fact that I am a home gardener and vegetarian for elecological reasons.

Farmers markets all over the world now days are not farmers markets.

They are mass grocery resellers. They buy in bulk from wholesale grocery suppliers and just sell at the farmers market.

Pineapples in minnesota in April? Sure, that is from a “local farmer”.

I live in Belgium and we have cheesemongers with 100 types of non-local cheeses, chemical coated oranges and summer fruits in January complete with stickers from mass produced fruit and veggies? Not only that, but it is then more expensive than a grocery store.

Not to mention that in both the US and here in belgium, farmers markets are ~50% non-food items with reselling mass produced clothing or blatantly selling really cheap candles and soap and other things that clearly game from mass produced hobby kits for a 200% markup.

Farmers markets literally aren’t farmer’s markets anymore. They are just open-air resellers.