Sunny Point Gardens sells Chinese cabbage on Saturday, April 4, 2015, at the Community Farmers Market. (Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.com)

Another farmers market in Warren County didn’t seem to squelch the business of the already existing farmers markets Saturday.

SOKY Market Place, the joining of SKY Farmers Market and Gateway Farmers Market, opened Saturday between the Bowling Green Ballpark and Hitcents Park Plaza. The grand opening will be in June when the pavilion is built behind the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center.

Brittany Young, SOKY Market Place board chairwoman, and Megan Bailey, Warren County extension agent for horticulture, said the market’s opening day saw a “constant flow of people.” They said some customers told them they had never been downtown until Saturday or drove to Bowling Green from out of town specially for the market.

About 20 to 30 people at a time perused about a dozen booths set up facing the empty restaurants of Hitcents Park Plaza. Virginia and Jimmy Tyler of Bowling Green have visited all the other nearby farmers markets – Community Farmers Market on Nashville Road, Beech Bend Farmers Market on Beech Bend Road and Bowling Green Farmers Market on Scottsville Road – and wanted to see what the new one had to offer. The Tylers said they usually look for fresh produce. Because it’s still early in the season, the market had more plants than produce, Virginia Tyler said.

“I think it’ll be better once they move over across the road,” Virginia Tyler said.

Jimmy Tyler said he expects he and his wife will be regulars at the market because they aren’t planting a garden this year. Virginia Tyler said she thinks having multiple farmers markets in the same county affects them all because customers won’t be as willing to drive to some of them if they’ve got one closer to where they live.

“It depends on if they have what you want,” Virginia Tyler said.

SOKY Market Place has faced some backlash because it is partially supported with funding from the Warren County Fiscal Court. Dan Kinsner, Bowling Green Farmers Market board member, said he doesn’t think the way the new market was established is fair to the rest of the markets.

“The rest of us, we didn’t ask the city or the county for help,” Kinsner said.

Although representatives from Beech Bend Farmers Market and Community Farmers Market said they didn’t detect a dip in numbers coinciding with SOKY Market Place’s opening, Kinsner said Bowling Green Farmers Market didn’t have as many customers as usual Saturday.

“It’s like when anything new comes to town. People are going to flock to (it) to check it out,” Kinsner said.

Kinsner said he is confident their customers will return. The bottom line is that all the farmers markets provide vendors with a place to sell and give people an opportunity to buy local food, Kinsner said.

“I wish them well. I hope it does well. I just don’t agree with some of the ways it was done,” Kinsner said.

Holly Cherry, a licensed massage therapist at Beech Bend Farmers Market, said she thinks a government-supported farmers market has an advantage over other markets, pitting them against a county-backed market. Regardless, she said, any market can succeed if quality is its goal.

“If you’re doing good and putting forth good product, you’re going to do good,” Cherry said.

Young and Bailey said local government supporting a farmers market is a positive thing for producers and consumers.

“Thank goodness we live in a community where government supports local food,” Young said.

Andy Moore of Moore Family Farms in Barren County set up at SOKY Farmers Market because he wasn’t able to get in at any of the other markets in Bowling Green to sell his lamb, Angus beef and other meat.

“It’s just been difficult,” Moore said. “It seems like the common answer has been, ‘Well, we need something that’s unique to our market, and we’ve already got a meat vendor, so we don’t need you.’ ”

Regardless of where a vendor sets up, the goal of all the markets is to get local food to the community, Bailey said.

“Really, we’re all there for good local food for the same reason, so really it should be a support system rather than a competition,” Bailey said.

Jackson Rolett, CFM outreach coordinator, said he thinks it’s more important for markets to serve the consumers who walk through their door than compete with one another.

“I don’t think (another market is) a bad thing. Not only do we need more outlets for producers, we need more options for consumers,” Rolett said. “For me, as a producer and a consumer, I just want to see more consumers shopping from local producers.”

Cherry said she thinks each market offers a unique atmosphere and assortment of products for the consumers.

“I feel like having four (markets) doesn’t necessarily affect (business). I like the diversity of all the markets,” Cherry said.

Lindsey Reynolds of Legacy Farms is a vendor at Beech Bend Farmers Market. She said being involved in a farmers market offers a network of relationships unlike a corporate setting. Reynolds’ livestock farm burned in February, along with two cows and 25 pigs that couldn’t be saved.

Reynolds called it “one of the most devastating things” that has ever happened to her, but her fellow market vendors and customers were some of the first people to offer sympathy and support.

“Until you go through something that has completely ripped you apart, you don’t realize the depth of caring that other people have about you,” Reynolds said. “… I really don’t think I would’ve been able to recover as well as I have without such a strong support system here.”

— Follow business beat reporter Monica Spees on Twitter at twitter.com/BGNDbusiness or visit bg dailynews.com.