The Dane County Farmers Market: Largest in America
Near Madison, Wisconsin
On Saturday mornings from late April through November, the four blocks of Capitol Square in Madison fill with vendors, farmers, and buyers. It is called the Dane County Farmers Market and it is, by a measurement that has held for decades, the largest producers-only farmers market in the United States.
It began in nineteen seventy-two. Madison Mayor Bill Dyke backed it as a way to bring the city and the countryside together. The first Saturday was modest, but before long farmers were arriving early to hold their spots on the Square.
The rule that day, and the rule enforced today, is the same: products must be grown or made in Wisconsin, and they must be sold by the person who made or grew them. There are no resellers. No middlemen. The person selling you the cheese made the cheese. The person selling the sweet corn planted it. The market calls this the producer-only standard, and it is the thing that separates the Dane County Farmers Market from nearly every other large market in the country.
About two hundred seventy-five vendors participate across the year, selling vegetables, fruits, meats, flowers, cheeses, breads, and specialty items from throughout the state. The circuit around the Square, about a mile, takes you past things that do not exist everywhere: cave-aged cheese from a family operation in the Driftless Area, maple syrup from a sugarbush that has been tapped for three generations, radishes that were in the ground three days ago.
The Capitol dome is always in view. That is, depending on how you feel about it, either a coincidence of civic planning or the entire point.
