There are over 50 farmer's markets in New York City in all boroughs, which operate under GrowNYC under the "Greenmarket" name.
One well-known farmer's market in New York is the Union Square Greenmarket, held year-round on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays with changing vendors on different days.
History
The process of creating a farmers market in New York City was very difficult and came with many hurdles. There are many organizations that needed to be consulted with in order to have made this possible: community boards, zoning committees, local merchants, the office of the Mayor of New York City and more. The first farmers market in New York City was at 59th Street and Second Avenue and it opened Saturday, July 17, 1976. In early 1976, Barry Benepe did a written proposal to finance New York City's first Greenmarket. Barry was an architect for the city government and Orange County, New York when he came up with the idea of a city greenmarket to solve the problem of loss of farmland in the metropolitan area and a lack of fresh, decent food in the city. The problem is further explained in "The Cornucopia Project" that details how from 1960 to 1980 the number of farms decreased by 28 percent and the land in farms by 19.5%.
Barry became the project director of the Greenmarket for the Council on the Environment of New York City (now GrowNYC) when they got involved in implementing his idea of the first city greenmarket.
The following organizations donated to Barry's idea: America the Beautiful Fund gave $800, the J.M. Kaplan Fund gave $10,000, the Fund for the City of New York gave $5,000 the Vincent Astor Foundation gave $10,000 and other public officials including Consumer Affairs Commissioner Elinor Guggenheim. On July 17, seven farmers from "Long Island, New Jersey and upstate New York" participated in selling at the first greenmarket which quickly became successful.
New York City Department of City Planning proposed to open a second farmers market at Union Square and a third one in Brooklyn. The Union Square Marker opened on August 30, 1976 and the Brooklyn Farmers Market opened on September 1. "Site ownership affected the total cost, while the Brooklyn site required a monthly rental fee, the two publicly owned sites in Manhattan were free, but required long, difficult, costly regulations". In Brooklyn the site owner was the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In order to cover these costs, farmers were charged a fee based on truck size and market location.
Other than fees, farmers were required to be certified by the County Extension Agent, posts reasonable prices, use scales, have a sign indication of farm name and location and cleaning up the selling space at the end of the day. Farmer profits ranged from $300 to $1,200 every market day. However, they would operate on Wednesdays only. The New York City greenmarkets would close from October to April.