Chicago's Farmers Markets bring more than 70 vendors selling fresh fruits, vegetables, plants and flowers to over 20 neighborhoods throughout the City of Chicago.

Every Sunday
June 7th - October 25th
7:00am - 2:00 pm

For additional information please visit, http://www.chicagofarmersmarkets.us

Fun Facts

• Illinois produces enough corn each year to fill a train of boxcars stretching more than 7,600 miles from Illinois to Hong Kong.
• More than half of the corn in the U.S. is used for livestock feed.
• Illinois chickens lay eggs that are used to make candy bars, mints, and hard candies all year round.
• Illinois poultry produces 876 million eggs per year.
• Decatur, Illinois is known as the soybean capital of the world.
• Soybeans are made into a fuel called soy diesel, used for buses and trucks.
• Soybeans help farmers by leaving nitrogen in the soil for the next crop.
• Illinois farmers grow more pumpkins than anywhere else in the world. In fact, they grow 90% of the pumpkins used for processing. Most of that processing take place in Morton, Illinois - The Pumpkin Capital of the World.
• Pumpkins are good for your body. The filling is rich in vitamin A and potassium. The seeds are full of protein and iron.
• Hogs provide us with more products than any other animal.
• Insulin and about 40 other medicines are pig by-products. Heart valves from pigs have been used to replace human heart valves.
• Popcorn is the official snack of Illinois.
• Popcorn is different than regular corn because it contains moisture in the kernel. When it is heated, the moisture heats, pressure builds and the popcorn pops! Popcorn is a good source of carbohydrates, energy, and fiber.
• Illinois is the third largest producer of popcorn in the United States. We have 333 popcorn farms that grow about 47,000 acres of popcorn each year.
• Pecans are the only tree nuts that are native to North America. A small three-ounce bag of pecans provides almost 10% of the daily-recommended value of zinc. pecans go back a long way as they were a major source of food for Native Americans in the 1500's.
• The name "pecan" is an Algonquin word meaning "a tough nut to crack."
• Pecans contain over 19 vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, E, several B vitamins, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, potassium and zinc. Picans are heart-healthy, containing 87 percent unsaturated fatty acids - 62 percent monounsaturated and 25 percent polyunsaturated.
• One out of five jobs in the United States is related to agriculture.
• The cattle industry provides the most agricultural jobs.
• There are 1,470,000 cattle and calves on Illinois farms.
• JoDaviess, Hancock, Fulton, Adams, and Pike counties have more cattle than anywhere else in Illinois.
• One Illinois farmers feeds 94 people in the United States and 35 people overseas-that's 129 people per year.

Source: Grown from the Heart in the Heartland