Even if you’ve never been to farm market or hate vegetables

Picture perfect setting: A recent Saturday morning at the “soon-to-be” (hopefully) America’s Favorite Farmers Market in downtown Rockford, MI.

by Cliff and Nancy Hill

Listen up people. When the fat lady sings next Wednesday evening (Aug. 31) at 12:00 p.m. midnight, the America’s Favorite Farmers Market contest will be over.
Rockford’s Farm Market has been clinging to the lead in this nationwide contest for the past 8 weeks. Not only do we lead overall in all market size categories, more importantly, we also lead in our small market size category.
Our opponent, Venice, FL, is wily. Their strategy in this contest has been to hang just behind Rockford in vote totals and then overnight close the gap. We are fearful of what might occur in the final hours of voting on August 31. Remember we are talking about Florida, the state of the “hanging chads.”
To those of you who have already voted, we thank you! However, your support is still needed in these final days and hours of the contest. We ask you to use your considerable social media networking skills to reach out to any and everyone to also cast their votes for Rockford’s great farm market.
This contest has become somewhat more than farm market vs. farm market.  It has somehow morphed into a state vs. state competition of bragging rights. With two farm markets in Michigan (Rockford and Manistique, in the U.P.) vying for titles in their respective market size categories against two farm markets in Florida (Venice and North Port). We ourselves like to think of this as a contest between “Pure Michigan” and “Alligator Alley.”
Now for one very last time let’s win two for Michigan. If you haven’t voted, go online to: www.farmland.org/vote or simpler still, visit the Rockford Farm Market this Saturday (your last opportunity to vote in person) and add your vote to the more than 4,000 that have already been cast. We need your vote to prove that Rockford’s Farm Market is truly America’s Favorite Farmers Market.