Episode 4 | Farmers’ Markets and Food System Resiliency in Toronto

In this episode, Feeding City Lab talks with a former market manager about what it takes to build up a farmers’ market in Toronto. Recalling his past experience running the Underpass Park farmers’ market and the Junction farmers’ market in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mike Lawler offers listeners a peek into two different open-air markets: one that had only recently opened within a new planned community in downtown Toronto, and another that was long established in the city’s west end. Mike shares some of the challenges, pandemic pivots, and successes that he encountered as he discusses the important role that farmers’ markets and small-scale producers play in Toronto’s food systems. The conversation centres the role of the marketplace in community-building, addressing topics that include access and representation, technology and online ordering, and food policy and urban planning. Now a food scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, Mike reflects on what he thinks needs to happen in Toronto, and beyond, for farmers’ markets to flourish within a commodity food system. This interview with Feeding City Lab was recorded on March 22, 2023.