Floyd Ott, who lives south of Eudora, waters plants he'll sell at the Lawrence Farmers Market for the 2008 season. Ott has been a small-scale produce farmer for 30 years. A nationwide interest in eating locally grown foods has blossomed in Lawrence, a timely development for the growing Farmers Market.

For 31 of his 82 years, Floyd Ott has arisen early every Saturday from spring to fall and brought produce from his farm on North 700 Road downtown to the Lawrence Farmers Market.

In that time, things have changed – the location, size and number of vendors, for sure. But one thing hasn’t changed: the idea of bring fresh, local produce to the people.

“It’s still the same thing, people growing local produce,” said Ott of Floyd’s Fruits and Vegetables. “They try to grow good produce that people like that’s fresher than what you can buy in the store.”

Same concept, new driving force behind it: In 2007, the New Oxford American Dictionary announced its word of the year was “locavore,” or somebody who tries to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Behind the popularity of books including “Grub,” “Plenty” and “The 100-Mile Diet,” eating locally has become a big trend, and the vendors at the Lawrence market have taken notice.

“It seems like last year began a groundswell,” said Debbie Yarnell of Homespun Hill Farm, a producer of grass-fed meat. “Customers were telling me they wanted to know the farmer that produced their food.

“Folks (are) just really realizing that they really just want to support small family farms and local dollars. And the food really does taste better when it’s fresh and local rather than being shipped in 1,300 miles away.”

Jill Elmers of Moon on the Meadow farm said she believes the cost of gas and shipping food, as much as its effect on taste, will have a major impact.

“I think especially this next year it’ll be interesting to see what happens with the economy the way that it is and fuel prices going up to see how that is going to affect food prices,” she said.

Elmers, who is on the market’s board of directors, said that the market is taking advantage of the interest in local food by offering extras and doing the most with what they’ve got. And what they’ve got is a Saturday morning market in the public lot between Eighth and Ninth streets and New Hampshire and Rhode Island streets, and a Tuesday-Thursday market at the public lot between 10th and 11th streets on the east side of Vermont Street. The Wednesday afternoon market that was introduced in 2007 was a “one-year thing,” Elmers said.

“We’re expanding the market square a little bit, which is where the tables and tents are, and we’re in the process right now of coming up with some of our special events. We’ll probably do the barbecue meat event that we did last year and then the tasting tomatoes, and we’re going to try to work in some chef demos this year,” Elmers said. “So I think we have some good ideas for trying to bring down as many customers as we can.”

Elmers said the market organizers also are discussing the possibility of reaching out to Kansas University.

“The seed has just been planted … to try to get a connection up at KU to educate the students that we do have a farmers market and when it’s available so that they can participate as well,” Elmers said. “I know that Saturday morning is not always the greatest time for KU students, but we do have a Tuesday and Thursday (afternoon) market.”

If those students or other customers get down to the weekday markets, which run from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., they might be able to get more than just produce and meats. Prepared foods might be the next addition to the market.

“One of the things the vendors would like to do for that market is try to attract more food down there, get local restaurants interested in trying to bring some ready-made foods down there for dinnertime,” Elmers said. “There’s certain things that they have to follow in terms of the health code, so we’re working on trying to figure that out.

“It’s in progress, actually.”