Lane County Farmers Market adds first-ever Sunday market in Springfield
Springfield is getting its first Sunday Lane County Farmers Market, with produce, flowers and food access moving to the City Hall lot on 225 5th St.
For the first time in more than a century of market history, Lane County Farmers Market is stepping beyond downtown Eugene with a Sunday market in Springfield. The new market is set for the Springfield City Hall lot at 225 5th St., giving shoppers in the county’s largest city a second weekly chance to buy directly from local growers.
The Springfield market is listed to run June 7 through Oct. 25, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. It joins the long-running Eugene market at the Farmers Market Pavilion at 8th and Oak, where the Saturday market runs Jan. 17 through Dec. 19, and the Tuesday market runs May 5 through Oct. 27, both from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The expansion gives vendors another sales day and puts a familiar local-food institution in a part of Lane County that has not had its own Sunday market before.
Lane County Farmers Market says its roots trace back to the Eugene Producers Market, which first opened in 1915 at 8th and Oak in downtown Eugene. The organization was reorganized in 1979 and now says it is Eugene’s largest farmers market, working with more than 100 farmers and food artisans. All items sold through the market are grown or made in Oregon, with vendors coming from rural Lane County as well as Portland and Central Oregon.
Orion Lawrenz, the market’s programming and marketing manager, said farmers markets offer a low-barrier way for customers to meet growers and buy food directly from the people who produced it. That matters in Springfield, where the city’s 2020 census population was 61,851 and where the new market could draw shoppers who want a shorter trip for fresh food and a more visible local gathering place.
This time of year, the market says shoppers can expect radishes, cucumbers, flowers and the first strawberries, with berries moving toward peak season. The Springfield location also gives residents another place to use SNAP/EBT benefits and Double Up Food Bucks, which match up to $20 and can be spent on fresh fruit, vegetables and plant starts. Farmers Market Fund says the statewide program operates at more than 100 participating Oregon farmers markets, farm stands, CSAs and grocery stores.
The Springfield market’s arrival adds foot traffic to downtown, broadens access to local produce and gives Lane County growers another place to sell. Whether it becomes a lasting shift will depend on how many shoppers make Springfield part of their weekly market routine, but the county’s local-food map is clearly widening.
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