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Iowa Farmers Markets

195 Iowa farmers markets in USDA's national directory. The middle of the 41 whose season can be read as a range runs May 7 to October 15. Enter a ZIP below for the nearest, with the season and hours each one filed and the date it filed them.

Every Iowa season and hours line here is what the market filed with USDA, with the date it filed beside it; current trading status is the market's own to publish
Listings in the directory
195
Seasons readable as a range
37
File weekly hours
41
Rank by listing count
#15
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The Iowa markets nearest a ZIP code

USDA’s directory holds 195 farmers market listings in Iowa. The middle of the 41 readable seasons runs May 7 to October 15. Today falls outside it, and that median reopens in about 200 days.

Seasons and hours as filed with USDA, each with the date it was filed. Many of those dates are years old. A market keeps its own calendar and publishes it in its own window, and every listing here links the directory record and the market for current status.

Every result shows the season and the hours USDA’s directory holds, the date that record was last updated and a link to the record; current status comes from the market.

Distance is printed on every row because it matters: a market 40 miles away describes that town rather than yours. A ZIP near a state line will pull results from both sides, which is correct behaviour rather than a bug.

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The Iowa season

The middle Iowa listing runs May 7 to October 15

USDA's directory holds 195 farmers market listings in Iowa. 37 of them give a season this site can read as a range, 19 percent, and the middle of those runs May 7 to October 15. The listings themselves were last touched between May 2020 and April 2026.

That range is a median across the 41 Iowa seasons in USDA’s directory this site can read as a range, with the year each operator filed under thrown away so a 2019 filing and a 2024 filing sit on the same axis. 16 of them came from a month range the operator typed into the date field rather than a filed date pair, which widens the window by up to a month at each end. Half of Iowa’s markets open later than the median by construction. Today falls outside the window, and the median opening comes round again in about 200 days.

3 Iowa listings are year round, either written that way or filed as a range that wraps the new year. Those are excluded from the median above and counted here instead, because a year round market says nothing about when a season opens.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDectoday
The middle of the 41 Iowa seasons in USDA's directory that can be read as a range: May 7 to October 15. 16 of them came from a month range the operator typed rather than a filed date pair. Half of these markets open later than the median by construction, and it is a description of what operators filed rather than a schedule any market keeps.
May 7Median opening, as filedacross 41 readable Iowa seasons
October 15Median closing, as filedabout 23 weeks of season
3Listings that are year roundset aside from the medians
#15Rank by listing countbetween Pennsylvania and Indiana
How good is this data

What Iowa operators actually filled in

What the Iowa listings actually fill in

  • Filed as two real dates2111%
  • Typed as a month range168%
  • Written as year round11%
  • Other prose, not readable32%
  • Left blank15479%

The first two rows are the ones this site can read as a range, 37 of 195 or 19 percent, and only those go into the median. A month range is the operator’s own words, so it is read rather than discarded, but it widens the window by up to a month at each end. 41 listings also file weekly hours and 195 carry usable coordinates, which is what the ZIP tool ranks on. The records themselves were last touched between May 2020 and April 2026.

The Iowa records in this snapshot were last touched between May 2020 and April 2026. That is the caveat on every line of this page: a listing carries whatever the operator typed on the day they typed it, and nothing rolls it forward.

195 of the 195 listings carry usable coordinates, which is what the ZIP tool ranks on, and 60 give a website. A listing with no website and no hours is still worth having, because the address and the directory record are enough to go and look.

Cabbages, cauliflower and yellow onions on a market table with handwritten price cards
Cabbage at seventy five cents a pound, priced on a card somebody wrote that morning. Of Iowa's 195 listings, 37 tell you which weeks of the year to expect this and 41 tell you which morning. “Cauliflower, winter cabbage, and yellow onions” — U.S. Department of Agriculture, Lance Cheung — Public domain
The big ones

The largest Iowa markets by the directory’s own vendor counts

USDA’s form asks operators how many vendors they have, and 42 of Iowa’s 195 listings answered. This ranks the ones that answered rather than the state, and the numbers are the operators’ own on the dates their records were last touched.

  1. Freight House Farmers Market150 vendors
  2. Freight House Farmers' Market120 vendors
  3. Dubuque Farmers Market90 vendors
  4. Ames Main Street Farmers Market70 vendors
  5. Ames Main Street Farmers' Market65 vendors

What Iowa listings say they belong to

  • 6 listings name Iowa Farmers Market Association
  • 4 listings name Healthy Harvest of North Iowa
  • 2 listings name Iowa Farm Bureau
  • 1 listing names Chamber of Commerce

These come from the directory’s own affiliated organisation field, which is the operator’s statement about its own market. They are membership organisations rather than public bodies, named here rather than quoted, and a market’s membership is the operator’s own statement.

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Current status

Where to check whether a Iowa market is trading

Where to find out whether a market is trading

Two places, in this order. The market’s own page or noticeboard, which is the only thing that is ever current, and Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, which is the public body for this in Iowa and keeps its own list. Link verified September 4, 2026.

A state farmers market association, where one exists, is nearly always a membership nonprofit rather than a public body, so the department of agriculture is the public body linked here.

“The Farmers Market Directory lists markets that feature two or more farm vendors selling agricultural products directly to customers at a common, recurrent physical location.”

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Local Food Directories: National Farmers Market Directory

A federal directory of farmers markets. Operators file and maintain their own listings, so an entry is a claim by the market rather than a check by USDA, and a town with no entry is not a town with no market. That cuts both ways in Iowa: the 195 listings here are markets that filed, and a Iowa town with no listing is a town where nobody filed rather than a town with no market.

Summarised from USDA Local Food Directories, National Farmers Market Directory in our own words.

Common questions

Iowa farmers market FAQ

Keep going

Nearby, and the rest of the local food calendar

Other Midwest states

Farmers markets in every stateThe national picture: how old the directory is, how much of it fills in a season, and every state ranked.Pick your ownThe other half of the same Saturday. Typical picking windows for six crops, from USDA census acreage.First and last frost datesThe NOAA normals behind every growing season on this site, state by state.

Farmers markets by state

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Every market on this site comes from USDA’s National Farmers Market Directory, run by the Agricultural Marketing Service under OMB control number 0581-0169, a US Government work in the public domain. Snapshot taken 2026-09-04: 7,067 markets, of which 653 filed a season as two real dates, 664 typed a month range that this site reads as one, and 1,563 file weekly hours. Listings are written and maintained by the markets themselves, so a season is the operator’s statement as of that record’s own date. Farmers markets in every state