According to a recent study from Purdue University, it appears that employees working at farmers markets rarely wash their hands, yet they serve ready to eat food to their customers. This is a very disturbing trend, more so with the recent outbreaks of food borne illnesses. These employees are putting consumers at risk by being ignorant about basic hygiene like washing hands. It is sad to note that of most of the employees who were studied, none used proper hand washing methods when either cooking or serving ready cooked food to customers. This is disaster waiting to happen and urgent action should be taken to rectify the situation.

Stringent measures should be put in place to ensure that consumers are served clean and safe food, especially since farmers markets are increasingly becoming popular food source among members of the public. One of the solutions to this saddening situation is that accessible portable water should be made available for hand washing. This way the employees won’t have an excuse of handling food with dirty hands. Secondly, the farmers markets should be modified so that at least clean and spacious stalls where customers can seat and eat are built; doing this will reduce the exposure of food to dirt and other possible contaminants that lurk outdoors. Thirdly, regular and impromptu inspections should be carried out by health officers to ensure that proper hygiene is being observed and maintained.

When all these have been done, then we are assured that the cases of food borne illnesses will be reduced and the money that would have been used to treat the illnesses will be saved and put into good use elsewhere. So it is important to act now and ensure that farmers markets observe proper hygiene for the safety of the consumers’ health.