Columbia Farmers Market

Every Saturday morning — and Wednesday evenings in summer — the MU Health Care Pavilion at Columbia's Agriculture Park fills with the sound of a community that has been building this market since 1980. What started as a handful of local growers selling produce at the old Boone County Fairgrounds has grown into one of the most decorated farmers markets in the country.

Columbia Farmers Market is a strictly producer-only market: everything sold is grown, raised, or made within 50 miles of Columbia. That rule has shaped a vendor lineup that ranges from row-crop vegetable farms to small-batch bakeries, from pasture-raised meat producers to coffee roasters. Shoppers can find Missouri Legacy Beef alongside Fretboard Coffee, fresh-baked loaves from Ozark Mountain Biscuit Co., and cultured dairy from Hemme Brothers Creamery — all within the same walk around the pavilion.

The market has always been community-first. It accepts EBT/SNAP, checks, and cards at a central token booth, runs a SNAP/WIC matching program that doubles up to $35 in tokens every Saturday, and hosts weekly kids' activities through its Good Food Detectives program. In 2023, after nearly 30 years as a 501(c)(4), CFM became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — formalizing decades of food-access and educational work already underway.

Whether you're after Saturday morning produce, a Wednesday evening dinner solved by a dozen prepared-food vendors, or just a reason to be outside at Columbia's Agriculture Park, CFM has more than four decades of practice making that experience easy.