Permanent downtown farmers' market set to open in July

So either that Mexican tomato's actual cost of production is far less than 99 cents a lb or someone at a Farmers Market is jacking up the prices 'because they can' and people will buy it.

Probably both. A certain segment of the population has gotten the idea that they must shop at farmers' markets because the food is supposedly healthier (possible) or better tasting (probable, if you're actually buying locally grown, ripe produce).

This has inflated demand to the point where sellers can charge a premium simply by virtue of being located at a farmers' market, and I have even heard (unsupported anecdote to follow) that regular commercial produce distributors are now selling their goods at farmers' markets while pretending to be local growers. ("Oh, yeah, these veggies are from my, uh, farm. It's two towns over.")

Actually what I want to know is why stuff at farmers market is more expensive than the supermarkets.

Well, first of all, it isn't always, but possibly it is in Boston. I definitely see higher prices at the markets in Boston than I do when the same farms are selling at markets outside the city. Before you wax indignant about that, consider that the farmer needs to travel much farther, pay more in market fees, spend more time, go through many more hassles and put up with much more bullshit to sell in Boston. Why would you do it if there wasn't something extra in it for you? I sure wouldn't.

More generally, your theoretical Mexican tomato is Roundup-ready, built to travel, protected with pesticides, grown in sketchy conditions and harvested green by workers being paid a pittance. All that saves a lot of money.

If it doesn't seem worth it to you, you might want to consider the current drought situation in California. I believe that the days of the 3000-mile tomato are limited and that they'll come to an end in our lifetime. If you can no longer count on cheap vegetables from Mexico and California, what will you do? Now is the time to be supporting food production close to home, not down the road, when it will be too late.

I chalk it up to a mix of all the things everyone just said. But I think the quality of the soil and sun is the biggest factor. There's a reason Mass isn't a big agricultural state. Our ground is full of tons of boulders and rocks and not all that naturally fertile. The Pilgrims found it tough going.

Also, most carbon emissions for produce, which I also equate with cost, are mostly fertilizer, pesticide, and fuel for tractors. The transportation is an extremely small component of the carbon footprint of our produce. Thus, in the view of carbon reduction, "food should be grown where it grows best". That doesn't mean that local food doesn't taste better though, as you get varieties that are not just designed for thousands of miles of travel.

Cybah, I haven't had coffee yet, and this is a complicated issue, so later today I will try to find for you a link that explains this better than I can right now

Short, incomplete answer:
--Because of a complicated system of agricultural and water subsidies, the price you pay in a grocery store for US farmed fresh produce rarely covers the cost of producing it. We artificially deflate the price of many US farm products through a system of compensated price fixing or direct subsidies-- corn and milk are the two that get the most press when occasionally a story arises, but it affects a lot more than that.
--Over the years, these legal price manipulations have been influenced by industrial level agricultural interests (ADM, Smithfield) to their greater benefit. Industrial farms can sell very cheaply.
--On a farm smaller than an industrial set-up, these subsidies aren't enough to raise anyone much above poverty level, if that. However, because the subsidy guarantees "x" amount of income on some portion of a farmer's property, the farmer can use that income guarantee in order to get loans/credit. Even though the subsidy might not cover production, it can be the only guaranteed income a farmer has. Banks like a guarantee. So farmers are drawn to devote at least part of their property to crops with the best guarantees. The best guarantees tend to be sturdy crops, like wheat or soybeans, rather than fragile or drought vulnerable crops, like squash. For a small farm to devote substantial property to the stuff we like in farmer's markets, he's taking a financial risk.
(Please note that I am so grossly oversimplifying this, this is not as linear as I'm making it seem)
--Property & labor are much cheaper in a lot of Latin America, and we have very favorable trade laws & tariff structures with many LA countries. We also have over 100 years of byzantine legal protections and regulations favorable to specific US companies that import, and occasionally build their own plantations, in some Latin American countries. Think United Fruit.

We are a country largely populated by the descendents of people who fled poverty and starvation. Furthermore, our shared culture romanticizes farming. So we want "small family farms" to exist but we're not willing to pay higher prices so they can. Subsidizing food production is one of the few winning points on the right and the left.

The price you pay at a farmer's market is usually closer to the actual cost of growing that tomato then what you pay in Market Basket.

I love fresh produce, and am happy to pay extra at a shop or a farmer's market to have some things fresh picked (strawberries, tomatoes, or Silver Queen corn and peaches when I'm in the south). And, I guess in typing that, there are certain types of produce I want that are only available seasonally & in small outlets.

Having said all that, I think 90% of organic produce isn't worth it, but that's a different topic for a different day.

Disclosure: My dad has been a farmer in Va. since the mid 1970s. I help with his taxes each year. And about 1/3 or his crops are organic.

1) The presence of the Haymarket pushcarts next door is a good thing: it gives shoppers different options in the same place at different prices. Also, the Haymarket pushcarts are going to have some things the market won't, because the market is locally grown/made and Haymarket is not so limited: if you like baked fish with lemon, you can buy fish from Gloucester at the market, but you're not going to find Mass.-grown lemons in the market. Go to the Haymarket vendors.

2) People will buy some things from the market and some things they won't, and that's OK. Thomas Keller's French Laundry restaurant in California grows its own organic vegetables, but the same restaurant also uses frozen shredded potatoes from the supermarket because Keller says he can't tell the difference from what he grows himself.

3) It's not surprising to me that Market Basket can buy locally grown produce wholesale and bring it to consumers for less than it costs for the farmers to bring it to a market themselves. They're very smart and they have efficiencies of scale that the farmers don't have. You might find some more variety of fresh local produce at the farmers market -- particularly of things grown in small quantities -- but if you find it more convenient to do your shopping once at Market Basket then more power to you.

Even if tomatoes at Farmers Markets are twice the price they are totally worth it. You'd have to pay me to eat the 99 cent Mexican tomatoes and thats saying a lot because good tomatoes in the summer are my favorite food in the world.

Those Mexican tomatoes are cheap to ship because they are hard as a rock. A good local tomato is juicy and delicate and has to be handled with care.

I don't see it as being about me. Residues in produce aren't the major human exposure.

I see it as reducing the use of pesticides overall, and the exposures to workers and neighbors.

My parents, working the produce fields as children (alongside their parents) after WWII, were sprayed in the fields with some pretty nasty "green revolution" things.
My mother died of autoimmune disease, and her sister and brother are managing their autoimmune issues - for now.

Field owners have, after much hard won awareness and intervention by authorities, started protecting their workers better, but there are still overspray and runoff impacts on water supplies to contend with.

Farmers have a few options for "organic" fertilizers. The effective organic ones are not necessarily any safer than synthesized fertilizers. Rotenine, for example, has been tied to fish kills. Pyrethrine, which was popular on organic farms a while ago & is derived from chrysanthemums or daisies, was found to be killing barn cats and high exposure in humans causes chronic nerve damage.

I don't want to seem unabashadly anti-organic. Some organic farming practices are a great improvement over the standard practices, and reduce run-off, soil loss, soil deadening, and many other problems. But organic practices are not magic. With a few exceptions worth heeding, organic produce itself is no healthier than standard produce. To me, focusing on low-impact farming practices is more important than on questionably "natural" practices. And, of course, finding healthy, safe food is the goal. Sometimes organic labelling is helpful in that, sometimes it isn't.

Freshness always makes a difference. That is where local farms pretty much always have an advantage.

Where is this "downtown" Stop-n-Shop?

Living on a budget doesn't make someone a hater.
Deciding you can't afford to pay $3 for a bunch of carrots does not make someone a hater.
Spewing a lot of toxic waste about how farmers' markets are a tool to oppress the common man and how anyone who shops there is an idiot...that makes you a hater. We've seen quite a bit of this kind of toxic waste in this thread. I wonder, if people are so comfortable with their choices, why are they so damn defensive to the point of spit-spraying hysteria? No one's bloody judging you, go take a nap, you're cranky!