Fees going up at farmers markets

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Popular state eatery closes temporarily

The State Farmers Market Restaurant is closing for eight weeks of repairs and renovations.

The restaurant will close today at 3 p.m. and is scheduled to reopen March 7.

The overhaul will include repairs to the kitchen walls, drains and floor, and upgrades for the heating and air-conditioning system. A new cooler and freezer will be installed, and the dining room will get new flooring.

Farmers markets seek wider niche

Six canopies teeming with local plants, produce and crafts on Clayton's grassy square signify a farm-fresh optimism taking root in the Triangle despite the chilly economy.

Open for business on a breezy Saturday, Clayton's new downtown farmers market is one of at least half a dozen such fledgling enterprises popping up in the Triangle this spring -- a bumper crop of ventures whose success hinges on customers willing to pay the often premium price for locally grown food.

Supporters of these new markets say that a fat, just-picked tomato or a basil plant in the kitchen window might be just the thing for the cash-strapped and fast-food weary. For some, spending a bit of their grocery budget on locally grown food is both healthy and shrewd because they believe they're buying superior quality.

Farmers Market signal on when no cars are in sight

You might think that the State Farmers Market is a 24-hour operation by the way motorists have to stop at the traffic light in front of the market's entrance at all hours of the day.

But the market, with its produce stands, shops and restaurants, closes at 6 p.m. daily. So, Bryan Cerutti can't understand why the light is still on at night, forcing him to yield to nonexistent motorists coming from the market's locked gate.

"It seems like a waste of time and gas," Cerutti of Clayton wrote in an e-mail message.

Feeding the world's growing population

In the lakeside capital of the central African country of Burundi, 40-year-old Lucie Nahimana fed her family of six "black flour," a low-quality cassava root that many there have resorted to eating because they can't afford anything else.

Thousands of miles away, in the port city of Tianjin, China, physician Ning Aimin scanned the shelves of her supermarket for yogurt, a food that was practically unheard of there a decade ago but has become a favorite of many of China's newly affluent.

On a chilly highway outside Gualeguaychu, Argentina, 10 trucks carrying enough rice to feed 3 million people in one day sat stranded on the side of the road, casualties of a 100-day farm strike that has paralyzed that country's giant grain industry.

Farmers market coming to downtown Smithfield

Johnston County will soon be sprouting a new farmers market in downtown Smithfield.

Abram Wellons plans to test- run a farmers market in a lot next to his family's hardware store, Roberts & Wellons, as early as late September. He'll start with cold weather crops such as lettuce and collards. He hopes to eventually add other local items, such as strawberries, peaches, fresh-cut sunflowers and organic produce.

"It just needed to be done," Wellons said. "We [in Johnston County] grow so much produce ... and have so many farms, and yet so much of it goes out."