Largest D.C. Farmers Market Repeatedly Denied Spots To Black Vendors, Farmers Allege

Washington, D.C.’s largest farmers market and its parent organization, Freshfarm, have repeatedly denied black farmers and food makers a spot at their most profitable market, Dupont Circle, say multiple food producers in their network. Like many other food institutions over the past few weeks, Freshfarm is hearing a growing demand for racial justice from its stakeholders.

On Monday, Freshfarm encouraged its more than 22 thousand Instagram followers to shop at “black-owned businesses in the Freshfarm network,” naming 15 black-owned farms and food producers who sell at Freshfarm markets. One of those business owners is Toyin Alli, chef and sole proprietor of Puddin’, a vendor known for dishes like po’boy sandwiches made with locally sourced catfish and oysters.

When she saw the post, Alli knew immediately that she had to speak out, even if it meant risking her business. That Freshfarm could only name 15 black-owned businesses out of over 150 vendors in the network was especially telling, said Alli. 

Black food makers allege years of discrimination

For the past seven years, Alli has applied for one of the coveted spots at the Dupont Circle market, but each year she’s been rejected with no explanation. Her impression was that spots were awarded based on tenure and financial stability, but efforts to show her business’s financial viability were never enough.

Representatives from Freshfarm reached out by phone not long after her Instagram post, which Alli says was the first time she’d had a substantive conversation with Freshfarm’s leadership about these issues. Yet she and several other black food producers have been talking about Freshfarm’s discrimination for years. 

“If you truly valued your black-owned business vendors then why do we only represent less than one percent of vendors at your highest grossing market, Dupont Circle,” wrote Alli on her Instagram page. Her video post has been viewed over 5,000 times. 

Alli usually sells at a much smaller Freshfarm location by the White House, a market she loves and hopes to return to once covid-19 closures are lifted. “It’s one of my most profitable markets,” Alli acknowledged but still, she said, it’s not Dupont. The Dupont Circle market is the longest-running and most profitable of the 33 farmers markets operated by Freshfarm across the mid-Atlantic region. It’s the one market Alli has wanted a spot at since she first launched her business ten years ago. 

The potential for revenue there is huge, according to Alli and farmer Chris Newman, whose Sylvanaqua Farms was also listed by Freshfarm in the initial Instagram post. Wrote Newman on his Instagram page: “I know (White) farmers who’ve managed to get a guest slot at FreshFarm’s Dupont Circle market and made two months of revenue in a single morning.” Over the years, the market has continued to grow, he argued, but without many black vendors. 

Mistakes have been made, says head of Freshfarm

Executive director Hugo Mogollon and deputy director Nony Dutton were both on the call with Alli. Mogollon, who is Latino, is new to Freshfarm. He became executive director earlier this year, inheriting an organization that has a lot of work to do, he acknowledged. He called their initial Instagram post a mistake, albeit a well-intentioned one. “Our intention was to support the businesses but we missed the target,” he admitted.  

Mogollon pledged to do better in the future. Freshfarm’s leadership has become more diverse, he pointed out. “I am Hispanic…Nony is half black,” said Mogollon, referring to Dutton. Mogollon added that though the pandemic has slowed the pace of change, it’s still Freshfarm’s priority. “We just want to do it right.”

The decision to give a vendor a spot at Dupont Circle involves weighing many factors, according to Mogollon, including maintaining the delicate balance between food growers and prepared food makers. This particular market has long leaned in favor of growers, a history the organization wants to maintain. According to Mogollon, Alli can make just as much money at her current market, since there are more prepared food makers there than at Dupont. 

Alli disagreed. “Let me make that decision,” she argued firmly, adding that Freshfarm provided no data on the call to back up that claim. And she’s seen otherwise. “Vendors that I know who sell at Dupont Circle say it’s their best market. And I’m talking about prepared food vendors.”

By email, Mogollon shared internal data showing prepared food makers have made more money at locations other than Dupont, particularly the market where Alli sells. But this data wasn’t shared with Alli. She was also at Freshfarm’s 2019 annual meeting, where 2018 data was shared with stakeholders that showed Dupont Circle made 46% of the overall farmers market revenue. Those numbers have since changed a little however, said Mogollon. It now bring in 35% of the overall market revenue, though it’s still the most profitable of the 33 Freshfarm markets.

Dupont is also one of the few markets that operates year-round, which gives the farmers and food producers who sell there an opportunity to make extra money in those lean winter months. 

New leadership promises to do better

Alli is sympathetic to Mogollon, who expressed a genuine interest in guiding the organization towards better decision-making under his new leadership. “This problem existed long before Hugo got there,” she acknowledged. Alli also said it’s Dutton who’s been the prime decision-maker for Dupont Circle, but Mogollon said that isn’t quite accurate, at least not anymore. It’s the organization as a whole that makes the decisions now, he explained. 

On the phone call, Alli said a frustrated Dutton told her “I’ve been trying to do all of this stuff for the black community, but you guys don’t see it.” According to Alli, Dutton went on to say that he had tried to get a list of black food businesses to add to their network, but the head of the organization that promised the list “dropped the ball” and never got back to him. 

The response made Alli furious. Why is Freshfarm struggling to find black businesses, she said. “Why can’t you just look around? Are you kidding me? You can’t tap into the vendors that you already have and ask them?”

Mogollon acknowledged that Dutton was probably defensive on the call, but what he was trying to get at is Freshfarm is trying to build lasting collaborations with black food and farming organizations. These collaborations will be critical for real change, but they do take time, Mogollon explained. 

Process feels unfair and inscrutable to black vendors

Over the years, Alli has seen many white and non-black newcomers get a spot to sell at Dupont Circle while she has been continuously rejected. She also knows a successful black-owned lemonade and kettle corn maker who was told by someone at Freshfarm that their concept was “too simple, too much like festival food” (Neither Mogollon nor Dutton know who said this).

As for Newman, operator of Sylvanaqua Farms and a fellow Freshfarm vendor, he applied just once for a spot at Dupont Circle but was also rejected. While he regularly sells at other smaller markets, he rarely makes a profit at these spots and uses them instead as a way to sign up customers for delivery of pork, poultry and eggs raised on his Virginia farm. 

Unlike Alli, Newman hasn’t heard from anyone at Freshfarm since he first made the post. “And I’m not sure that I will,” he added. He doesn’t feel like he’s ever talked to the right people, those elusive decision-makers. “It happens in a smoke-filled room,” he said, describing what feels like an inscrutable process. Mogollon felt this was a mischaracterization, that Freshfarm has made an effort over the years to discuss the decision-making factors with both Newman and Alli.

Freshfarm later posted an apology to its Instagram account, expressing gratitude to Alli for sharing her voice. “The farmers and producers at our markets currently do not reflect the wealth of diversity in our community,” it read. But many commenters, including Newman and Alli, felt the apology rang hollow absent any mention of concrete plans to address racial injustice.  

New movement of black farmers seeks change

The demographics at Dupont Circle have always made Newman feel he had no shot. “You’ve got all of these incumbents that have been there basically forever,” he explained, since the early days of the market when there were far more roadblocks for black farmers. “You couldn’t get access to land. You couldn’t get access to facilities, to money.”

Newman wants to break with that history, which is why he’s forming a new kind of farming collective. His plan is to eventually lease a larger piece of land in Virginia where farmers can apply a combination of intensive and Indigenous farming methods to create financial stability and food security for everyone in the collective. 

Today, there is a growing movement of black farmers in the U.S., though they still make up a small percentage of the overall farming population, only 1.3%, according to USDA census figures. Black farmers also make an average of only $40,000 annually as compared to $150,000 for the average white farmer.

“Ultimately, enough is enough,” said Alli, who is still asking for more transparency from Freshfarm in the future. She isn’t upset with the white and non-black food makers that have been selected ahead of her. She just wants to know why she’s been excluded. “What criteria are you using to choose her over me?” she asked. For now, she is still waiting for an answer.