Farmers’ markets, like few other things out there, get at the heart of what we’re attempting to build at Walden.

Think about the last time you walked through a farmers’ market; what you saw, heard, tasted. A farmer re-stocking fresh produce, trying to keep onions from rolling off the side of the table…or the owner of a small food brand providing samples of their pastries, as one suspicious non-customer keeps walking a loop to get seconds and thirds. People milling around with their morning coffee, chatting and laughing.‍

There is magic in the interconnectivity. Our modern food system is typically disjointed; the food that ends up on your plate at a restaurant has likely traveled thousands of miles to get there and been touched and processed by too many hands (or machines) to count along the way. With each incremental link in the food chain, the impacts of our choices get more and more obscured. When our choices are out of sight, out of mind, the resulting consequences are someone else’s problem, somewhere else.

And yet we all have an awareness (theoretical, if not experiential) of how much simpler that relationship can be. The appeal of “farm-to-table” restaurants is derived from that simplicity; in our recent evolutionary past, the supply chain only had a link or two – often going straight from the ground to our plates.  

Farmers’ markets are a reminder of that possibility, where food producers, processors, and brands all exist in the same physical space…alongside the food consumers on the other side of the chain. Shawn Menard (a Walden corporator) leads Seacoast Eat Local, a non-profit that, among other things, organizes and supports a range of farmers’ markets in New England’s Seacoast region. To him, “one of the most underrated values of farmers' markets is that they serve as a reminder of the local food system as a whole.”

Investing in these alternatives to the conventional food system drives real impact. Edith Murname is the Executive Director at Mass Farmers’ Markets (a Walden partner), and to her, “Shopping at a farmers’ market is an act of advocacy. You're supporting local farmers that keep working landscapes an economically feasible endeavor.”

All of this is a microcosm of our vision for systems-level change. Imagine regional food systems in the Northeast and beyond that are more interconnected, with more food consumers able to trace the connection between the food on their plate and the farms where it originated. It’s our hope that the capital we deploy and the community we’re building catalyze that type of impact.

Case in point: On June 21st, we launched our 2024 Summer Farm Dividend. All partner-depositors who had $5,000 or more in their Walden personal accounts were eligible for a $100 credit to spend this summer at a farm or food business of their choosing – maybe even their local farmers’ market.