When the farmers market comes to the Aroostook Center Mall in Presque Isle every Saturday, the rest of the mall merchants reap the rewards. Farther south, downtown merchants in Brunswick have estimated that their profits are tripled on farmers market day.

The same gain occurs in Ellsworth at Larry’s Pastry, located right next door to the three-day-a-week farmers market.

“It’s definitely a mutual benefit,” co-owner Launa Picard said. “People often stop in to get a loaf of bread to go with their veggies.” Picard said her customer base can easily be boosted by 20 additional people on market days and the bakery itself benefits by bartering flowers for lunch with one vendor.

Farmers markets are an important economic development tool and are getting a second look by urban planners, development directors, regionalism advocates, and downtown merchants hungry for pedestrian traffic. Farmers markets can plug economic leaks and promote a recirculation of local dollars, capturing some of the money that formerly left the community as payments for food or household goods produced elsewhere.

“We’ve always known that farmers markets were good for Maine’s farmers and eaters,” said Roger Doiron of Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine. “What has become clear more recently are the many positive economic and social spin-off effects they have. Farmers markets add to the quality of life of Maine’s cities and towns by offering a pleasant shopping alternative to the big box retail stores. Farmers markets are helping to re-create this sense of a vibrant urban center. I think we’re just seeing the beginning of what farmers markets can do in terms of urban renewal in Maine.”

The spin-off business that farmers markets bring to downtown areas threatened by suburbanization and big-box malls is galvanizing towns, chambers of commerce and downtown business groups to sponsor such markets.

That’s the case in Bucksport with its Riverfront Market, held every Saturday. Town officials are so committed to the market philosophy that Bucksport provides free space and pays the advertising bills.

“The sole reason we developed the market along the riverfront was to attract customers downtown on a traditionally slow day,” David Millan, Bucksport’s economic director said this week.

“Our downtown consists of many service businesses, such as doctors, dentists, and attorneys, that are closed on weekends. Our retail businesses were suffering,” Millan said.

By moving the struggling Thursday farmers market to Saturday and adding arts, crafts and music, Millan said, a destination was created. “We also created a cost-efficient base for small entrepreneurs. We might have a photographer right next to someone selling green beans,” said Millan. “And it has been very successful.”

While many markets may appear informal and laid back, a lot of money changes hands. State officials estimate that every $1 spent at the farmers market leverages at least 58 cents within the community. Translated, if a farmer takes in $300 on a market day, the community will gain $174 in companion sales. Multiply that by 20 vendors and the local impact of the market quickly becomes apparent.

Not only is some of the market profit shared with surrounding businesses by the vendors, the market itself is drawing customers for other merchants.

The nonprofit organization Project for Public Places of New York City surveyed a number of varying farmers markets across the country following the 2004 market season. The group found that 60 percent of farmers market customers said they had visited other stores in the neighborhood in the same day, and of that group, another 60 percent said they only visited those stores on market day.

A whopping 77 percent said they would not be downtown at all if it were not for the market.

Alice Cheeseman of Unity saves up her errands for market day and has noticed that many other shoppers do the same thing. “We really cherish our downtown here,” she said. “When I go to the market, I also go to the grocery and hardware stores and the pharmacy.”

“Farmers are economic engines in the communities in which they live,” Mary Ellen Johnston, head of the marketing division of the Maine Department of Agriculture said recently. “Their participation in farmers markets feeds the trend of getting back to community-based activities.”

In small towns in particular, a downtown farmers market “gives people one more reason to come downtown and builds a true sense of community,” Johnston said.