By Jon Palmer, News Correspondent

Northeastern’s Student Government Association (SGA) has tried to organize a farmers market on campus for the past three years, so news of the market’s postponement last week came as a blow to the group as well as many students and faculty, said SGA senator and junior political science major Dylan O’Sullivan.

“Trust me, I was just as disappointed as anyone that it didn’t happen,” said O’Sullivan, a member of both the Progressive Student Alliance and SGA’s Student Services committee. “It’s frustrating. But we’re just trying to resolve it and move forward and make sure it happens in the future.”

The inaugural farmers market is now tentatively scheduled for July 13.

O’Sullivan has been working on the market for the past six months, reaching out to vendors and promoting the event on campus. He said the event was cancelled last Wednesday because the city had not yet granted the correct permits to the farmers and vendors.

“We had been expecting [the permits] to be coming in,” said Timothy LePage, SGA’s vice president for student services. “As far as I know, they didn’t because of the delay of the city to get them in, for whatever reason they couldn’t.”

He said that because of the large amount of support the market has gotten, the organizers made sure to alert the public of the cancellation by any means available within moments of finding out, using Twitter and Facebook to explain the permit situation. Both LePage and O’Sullivan added they don’t work directly with the vendors about permits – this is the job of the market manager. Emily Hartman of the Office of Student Affairs holds that position, but was out of the office for an extended period of time and unable to comment.

“I’d say the university has been 100 percent behind us with the farmers market since the beginning, and that they are just as disappointed as we are,” LePage said.

The Northeastern farmers market is a bit different than others, in that it is usually the responsibility of the market manager to obtain the necessary vendor permits. Northeastern already has the permits necessary to hold the event on their campus, but under the university’s contract, the sellers at the market must also secure permits themselves from the city in order to sell their produce.

Ashley Howard, owner of Heaven’s Harvest Farms in New Braintree, Mass., who so far is the only farm committed to the Northeastern farmers market, says that this is the reason Northeastern has had difficulty putting on the event.

“If Northeastern agrees to the correct terms, we’ll be all set,” Howard said. “Nobody goes to a farmer’s market as a ‘vendor,’ and has to get a permit from the city of Boston. We were invited to be a part of a farmer’s market – and every market we’re a part of doesn’t do it the way [Northeastern is] doing it.”

Howard said he has sent copies of contracts from other farmers markets to the Office of Student Affairs to show them examples of the way things are usually done.

“For a successful farmers market, certain permits need to be obtained and we are working out those details with the vendors and other appropriate parties,” said Ed Klotzbier, the departing vice president and dean of the Office for Student Affairs, in a statement to The News. “We are very excited that students have initiated such a worthwhile program and hope to have this matter resolved soon.”

O’Sullivan and LePage said they were pleasantly surprised by the amount of support the event has garnered around campus from groups like the Husky Energy Action Team (HEAT), the Office of Student Affairs and from students. According to the Facebook event page O’Sullivan created, at press time, 748 people said they were attending.

Emily Russell, a junior international affairs and environmental studies major, said she is very excited about the event and described herself as an avid farmers market fan.

“I’ve been to a farmers market in every city I’ve ever lived in,” Russell said. “Who doesn’t love fresh produce? It’s great that, instead of taking the T to Haymarket, I just have to walk five minutes from where I live.”

With all of the support behind the event, some people on campus, such as Russell, wondered why it took three years to happen.

O’Sullivan said there have been many obstacles on the road to making the market a reality. As with any new market, vendors are leery about driving to Boston – many coming from central or western Massachusetts – in order to sell produce to a crowd of an unknown size. LePage said, at this point in the summer, many vendors have prior commitments. One potential vendor is committed to 15 other markets. Last year, everything was in place legally on the university side for the market to happen, but no farmers were willing to risk selling at a new market on a college campus.

“There’s been a lot of failures of this kind of event in the past, especially when they were student-run,” LePage said.

Despite past failures, LePage and O’Sullivan are convinced this year will be different. O’Sullivan said the excitement he has seen around campus alone will be enough to ensure success, but that’s not the only thing working in Northeastern’s favor.

“Our location between the Orange and Green lines helps us,” O’Sullivan said. “Also, the universities who tried something like this before in the summertime didn’t have the same kind of summer session that we do, and so nobody was around to attend.”