Slideshow by Merry Le

Back on campus for only four weeks, the farmers market is scaling down to its last vendors at San Jose City College.

“(On the first day) I made $350, which is not considered a very good sale. I thought it was going to pick up, then half of the vendors left,” said the Hummus Heaven vendor Mo Ghoname.

Ghoname is one of two vendors that were still on campus last week.

Each vendor like Ghoname has to pay Jerry Lami, executive director of West Coast Farmers Market, around $45 every time they set up their tents at campus. This cost, in addition to the commute cost and produc- ing expenses, make it un- profitable for those vendors when their sales are low.

“To make the market worth for me, I need to make at least $400 to cover every cost,” Ghoname said.

“This market is saturated,” Lami said. “Vendors are not returning.”

After the visit to SJCC last year, Lami gave his idea to Vice President of Administrative Services Greg Nelson about having the farmers market on campus.

“They (farmers) approached us, and they rent the space to use for the market per our facility rental policy,” Nelson wrote in an email.

The farmers market was opened at SJCC on Sept. 26 in the student quad, with vendors showing varieties of their products. The vegetables were from Fresno, and most farmers were driving two to three hours to bring fresh products to the market.

“Our farmers work so hard,” Lami said. “They work during the night and early morning hours in order to pick the crops and deliver them to where they sell them.”

He also said the problem they have is the people in the area are busy. Lami tried to put up some banners, and posters with hopes of getting more customers but said “they didn’t work.”

Ghoname said he thought differently, “It’s up to the community; it’s not up to us.”

“I didn’t find the cooperation of bringing more people to know about us,” he said.

Ghoname’s business in a hospital near Mountain View is the opposite.

“The place was full of vendors. 2,000 employees of the hospital came down at lunch and bought our products,” Ghoname said.

He said he is thinking about leaving like other vendors to a place where he can make more money.

“It’s a farmers market without farmers,” Ghoname said. “It’s dying. We don’t have the momentum. We lost it.”