Consumer Embeddedness and Motivations for Farmers Market Patronage: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

The rise in popularity of farmers markets in the United States reflects consumers’ negative response to more traditional food distribution systems. Farmers markets provide consumers with a more local and often more personal food purchasing experience. This paper examines consumer motivations to attend farmers markets in Minnesota using the concept of embeddedness. Values of social embeddedness, spatial embeddedness, and natural embeddedness are used as a framework to analyze the range of non-economic motivations and values sought by patrons of farmers markets. This work contributes to existing literature on non-economic motivations to patronize farmers markets and support local food systems.