Support Your Market

GIVE US A HAND! VOLUNTEER TODAY.

We’ve grown a lot in 10 years and now we could use your help. Are you a big fan of the market? Sign-up to be added to our volunteer pool to sell merchandise, help with parking and work special events. We’ll e-mail you with other opportunities too. Thank you!

Volunteer Today!

WHY DOES THE MARKET MATTER?

Patrons average per week

Vendors average per week

Happiness Index

We go to the market every Saturday. We can shop for the next week, eat a healthy breakfast and let the kids run around and dance to Cajun music. It’s a great way to spend the morning.

Jason B.

Your donation directly supports a healthy local food system, providing a sustainable livelihood for small family farmers and making fresh, healthy food accessible to everyone. Join us in cultivating a healthy local food system with a donation today.

The Lafayette Farmers & Artisans Market is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Donate to the Market

BENEFITS OF THE MARKET

Support Locals

All the products in our market are grown, harvested, or created within 100 miles. Supporting our tremendous community of local farmers and artisans means supporting local families, giving them the valuable capital they need to keep operating and providing consumers an alternative to mass-produced foods.

Feel Good

The farmer’s market is a great place to gather. Visiting is a fun family activity, and you can meet members of your community. Our market includes a Cajun musicians jam every week, ready served food and drinks and children’s face-painting, making it a terrific way to spend a morning.

Eat Healthy

Offerings at the market are picked at the peak of their ripeness when they not only taste better, but it also provides the best nutrition possible. Vivid colors in fruits and vegetables are a reflection of the nutrients they contain. Many local farmers cultivate extremely nutritious produce through their careful farming methods.

Make a Difference

Supermarkets receive their produce from hundreds of miles away, using large amounts of fuel for shipping on refrigerated trucks. Our market’s products don’t travel far and our open-air market requires very little electricity. Along with conserving fuel, family farms produce less environmental waste like carbon monoxide, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers.

Our Birth

In early 2013, then Lafayette City-Parish President Joey Durel brought together a diverse group of folks, all with one goal in mind: To develop a Farmers and Artisans Market at the city’s newly-acquired Horse Farm property in the center of Lafayette. After months of planning the Market Advisory Committee gathered at the Horse Farm before 6:00 a.m. on June 1, 2013 to welcome 45 vendors to the first Lafayette Farmers and Artisan Market.

9 Years and Going Strong

In June 2022 we celebrated 9 years of servicing the community. Market Director Mark Hernandez has said, “The object is to give farm-based vendors an opportunity to sell their wares at a good price. Each week we have over 50 vendors who come out from 24 different parishes. The great thing about being at a farmers market is it allows them to get to know their customers and for the customers to know their product.”

LFAM Board of Directors - 5th Birthday Celebration

Growing and Growing

As the market grows, our board will seek to maintain our unique balance of produce, crafts and ready-to-eat food. We look forward to increasing our educational outreach and hosting more events at the market. But the biggest change will be the area around us, as Moncus Park develops into a first-rate city park. The large hill created for the park is now the highest point in Lafayette and the master plan calls for additional forest plantings along the edges of the fields, rows of new live oak trees throughout the park, shading trails and other family areas, and a cypress forest along the edge of the wetland pond. Very exciting stuff!