Omaha Farmers Market offers safe environment to visitors while supporting local food sector

Juli Oberlander • September 29, 2021

Omaha Farmers Market offers safe environment to visitors while supporting local food sector

Photos courtesy of Maggie Winton

Since 1994, the Omaha Farmers Market (OFM) has served the community by providing Omahans an opportunity to shop for fresh produce, support farmers and interact with local artisans.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges, OFM project manager Kristen Beck says the team has worked hard to adjust and adapt.

“The COVID-19 pandemic was definitely challenging for us during our 2020 market season,” Beck says. “We had to postpone the opening of both our Saturday Market in the Old Market and the Sunday Market in Aksarben Village by five weeks. We also worked directly with the Douglas County Health Department on new policies to ensure the safety of the market, staff, vendors, and customers.”

Beck says some of the policies included relocating both markets to temporary locations (making social distancing easier to enforce), limiting the number of vendors onsite and providing masks for visitors.

“It was very difficult, but ultimately I’m proud of how we were able to make it work," she says. "We managed to fulfill our mission – making locally grown foods accessible and supporting our local farmers and artisans – while still keeping our community safe.”

During the 2021 market season, Beck say the Omaha Farmers Market continues to make safety a priority. Both the Saturday and Sunday markets remained in their 2020 locations, allowing the team to control crowd access and encourage social distancing as much as possible. The Saturday Market is located in the parking garage at 11th and Jackson Streets, while the Sunday Market is located in Baxter Arena Parking Lot 26.

When the markets opened the first weekend in May, Beck says the team followed the same precautions as the 2020 season based on recommendations from the Douglas County Health Department, the City of Omaha and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Beck says OFM has worked with the Douglas County Health Department by providing a space for its Mobile Vaccine Clinic at the Saturday Market to vaccinate the public during the month of August. The Mobile Vaccine Clinic offers the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, and vaccinations are free to the public.

“We continue to work directly with the Douglas County Health Department so we can stay up to date on our policies and guidelines,” Beck says. “Even as cases drop and more people get vaccinated, we want to make sure we keep our markets as safe as possible.”

For more information on Omaha Farmers Market's COVID-19 policies, visit the website.

About the Omaha Farmers Market:

The Omaha Farmers Market (OFM) was established to make locally grown foods accessible, provide a venue for more than 100 local growers, producers and makers to market their goods and add to the vitality of the community’s civic life. In addition to creating a space for local vendors, OFM also provides a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a SNAP Matching program called Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) at the markets. OFM is dedicated to providing access to fresh local goods to all of its community members. The Omaha community has helped the Omaha Farmers Market grow for 28 seasons, and OFM looks forward to continuing this beloved tradition for years to come.