Jeremy Brown, owner of La Uva Fortuna Farms east of Battle Ground proper, wants to expand opportunities in Battle Ground through a new farmers market and possibly even a single-day festival in north Clark County in the future.
Brown, a leader in the We Love Battle Ground.org he said is an answer to the lack of a chamber of commerce, wants to host farmers markets and a festival through the organization.
Brown is planning his farmers market to take place at the Battle Ground Station food cart pod, where La Uva Fortuna Farms owns and operates Pizzaolo, a wood-fired pizza truck. He said coming late into the farmers market season has been a struggle to gain enough interest for a weekly market, but he believes a string of one-off markets will grow into that.
Brown said the plan is to host a farmers market at the site the last weekend of July or the first weekend of August.
“I think it’d be super amazing and community driven to have,” Brown said of the farmers market idea. “I can kind of visualize that market down there among the food trucks and then be able to go get tacos or pizza and then be able to go shop some local vendors.”
Along with the idea of a farmers market, Brown would like to bring a festival to Battle Ground that will serve the northern reaches of Clark County’s economy.
“We’d love to try to figure out possibly a venue inside or around Battle Ground that we could possibly do something that would bring a lot of people to the community and help build up the local businesses,” Brown said.
Brown added that he would like the festival to be a single-day event that will drive the local economy.
Brown and the We Love Battle Ground.org board are focusing on the farmers market, first and foremost, but the festival is still under consideration.
Brown said the event would be a music, brew and wine festival featuring possibly country and blues music. The struggle to find a venue has made it unlikely for it to occur this summer, though.
“We were talking to the city, and we’re talking about where that could go because obviously it’s going to be loud. Obviously it’s not like every week or every day, but it’s just a one-time thing, probably during the day and a little bit into the evening,” Brown said.
The dream is to make it an event where people will be booking hotels, Airbnbs, patronizing the local food options and more. He said finding a venue location has been a challenge because the city of Battle Ground has not developed a location in the parks system for such a thing.
“The challenge is where do we put this where it wouldn’t interrupt people’s lives in a negative way or impact negatively on the neighbors,” Brown said. “... We talked to a couple of people who might take a look at doing something like just in a field outside of Battle Ground where the closest neighbor is the person that’s leasing the space.”
He said the big field approach with a stage being brought in might be the direction the board decides to go, but he reiterated that the festival plan is still a project for the future.
As far as the farmers market goes, the organization still needs vendors, Brown said. Those interested can visit welovebg.org to sign up and/or find more information regarding the organization and its efforts.
Local businesses can add themselves to the community partners list for free by visiting the website’s Community Partners page.
