Farmers go to market, but not as often

Franca Tantillo puts rising fuel prices in the same category as the springtime hailstorm that wiped out part of her strawberry crop. Both cut into the profit she can make at the farmers markets she sells at in New York City, about 135 miles south of her farm.

Like Tantillo, market farmers nationwide face exponentially rising costs for fuel, fertilizer and animal feed that could force them to hike prices that are already often higher than grocery stores.

It couldn't come at a worse time for farmers: their customers are also feeling squeezed by inflation.

Tantillo estimates about half the money she takes in on a given day at the market now goes to cover costs related to transportation. She drives a van that carries less, but is more fuel efficient than her old panel truck.

She even skipped an entire month of selling in the city because she didn't think the returns would be worth the expense.

"I'm a small grower," she said recently, as she stood at her table laden with $4 quarts of strawberries and other produce from her "Berried Treasures" farm in Cooks Falls, N.Y. "And I'm trying not to raise prices."

While farmers markets have a long history in the United States, the Department of Agriculture says the number across the country nearly doubled in the last decade — to nearly 4,400 in 2006 — as more consumers embraced buying locally produced food.