Prompted by the growing interest in buying locally grown produce and a desire to maintain a vibrant community, a group of residents is working to create a farmers’ market in Harvard. If all goes well, the Harvard Farmers’ Market will follow the local growing season, opening in late June or early July and continuing weekly until the middle of October.

The group’s stated mission is “to establish a place where local products can be sold to the community firsthand. In this way, we hope to support our local farmers; bring the community together; provide fresh, nutritious, quality produce; and promote the benefits of buying local food.”

“We’re finding tremendous enthusiasm throughout the town for a farmers’ market,” Scott Road resident Jennifer Sundeen said. “People want fresh, healthy produce. They want to know where their food comes from. And they want the increased sense of community that other towns have found from their farmers’ markets.”

Another resident said that she is motivated to help create a Harvard farmers’ market by the pleasure she found attending the Lexington one. “Imagine picking up fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella for dinner, and finding out what is happening in the community at the same time.”

The organizers, spearheaded by Sundeen and Mill Road resident Lisa Frackiewicz, are aware that organization and hard work are the least of their obstacles. Finding enough local growers with a variety of produce, finding a day and time convenient to both producers and residents, and finding a good location are the real challenges.

The Farmers’ Market Committee has been given permission to use the elementary school’s front semicircular drive Saturday mornings during the summer and fall. “HES is an ideal spot since visibility is so important for the success of the market,” Frackiewicz said. “We hope that a visit to the farmers’ market will become a regular stop amidst all the Saturday activity here in town.”

These days there may be more farmers’ markets than farmers. Many of the small farms now sell at the Boston area markets and are not available for the small-town markets. Towns compete to fill the best times, like Saturday morning, and producers naturally want to be where there are the most buyers. The organizers, nonetheless, are encouraged by the positive response from local farms already and believe the convenient time and location, combined with local interest, will be attractive to both buyers and growers.

Even though Harvard and the surrounding region have a rich agricultural past, only a few farms remain today. Paul Willard continues his family’s three-century tradition farming in Still River, while the other medium-scale farms and dairies have long closed. Harvard’s remaining orchards produce an abundance of apples, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, and blueberries, but the orchards face pressures from global competition and one-stop supermarkets. The committee hopes that a town farmers’ market will give growers an added outlet for their produce and will encourage buyers to “think local” when shopping the other six days of the week.