PROVIDENCE — Lured by toothpick-speared cantaloupe slices, mountains of organic radishes and a bucket of giant sunflowers, shoppers streamed into the farmer’s market at Kennedy Plaza on a recent afternoon, pushing strollers and carrying bags ready to be filled with produce.

In the August sunshine, similar markets on Hope Street, Broad Street and at the Cranston Armory also regularly draw a crowd, filling cupboards and generating critical income for area farmers.

But the stalls vanish when the temperature drops, depriving growers of a lucrative market and forcing shoppers to rely on vegetables that may have traveled the globe to reach consumers’ salad bowls.

“The growing season sort of disappears,” Bruce Tillinghast, the owner of New Rivers restaurant, said. “The pickings are pretty slim.”

So now the nonprofit group that runs farmers’ markets from June through October is trying to extend Rhode Island’s growing season through the frigid and snowy New England winter.

Farm Fresh Rhode Island, founded in 2004, has quietly launched an ambitious plan to establish a year-round, indoor market for local farm products.

Next month, it will learn if it has been selected for a $70,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to plan a permanent retail market. The grant would represent a 70-percent increase of the group’s annual budget.

Around the same time, an AmeriCorps volunteer will join Farm Fresh to research potential buildings in or around Providence that could house a market. For now, Farm Fresh has only two full-time staff members.

The group has begun seeking donors to support the campaign.

Even if Farm Fresh could afford the urban real estate, however, replicating the success of the farmers’ markets would require altering consumer buying habits and long-established farming routines.

Shoppers who linger at farm stands in the summer, patiently scrutinizing squash and massaging melons, shift into a more hurried pace in September.

Some farmers, meanwhile, look forward to the winter recess, using the time to repair barns, prepare for spring planting or take a second job.

If they brave the chill in their fields, many of the greens that thrive in the winter — such as kale and collards — are considered bitter and exotic and might not find buyers. (More popular produce, such as strawberries, grow for months in California but can be picked for only a few weeks in Rhode Island.)

The cold weather and snowfall eliminates opportunities to raise money from farm tourism, killing demand for hayrides and pick-your-own outings after the last pumpkin has been plucked.

“This is an enterprise that needs a little nurturing,” said Sheri V. Griffen, the Farm Fresh marketing director. “We’re going to have to take a jump into the deep end of the pool.”

But if winter agriculture is ever to succeed here, advocates say, now is the time to try.

Interest in local agriculture has exploded in recent years, fueled by fears of tainted crops from large domestic farms and by reports of hazardous food imported from China.

Anxiety over global warming has sparked interest in so-called food miles — the distance traveled from farm to plate — as the warming climate promises a more hospitable environment for local plants.

Disappearing farmland in Rhode Island, coupled with promotional campaigns by Farm Fresh, is energizing consumers to patronize surviving growers.

“It’s a food trend, and it gets bigger every year,” said David Johnson, sous-chef at the Local 121 restaurant in Providence.

Local 121, which opened in the former Dreyfus Hotel last spring, is busily freezing blueberries, pears and plums, pickling cucumbers and canning tomatoes so it can live up to its name come November.

“There are so many other restaurants that depend on these local farmers,” Johnson said.

Hungry for cash to pay for seed and animal feed, some local farms have already begun generating a winter harvest.

For decades at Simmons Farm, in Middletown, all activity stopped in October once the farm stand closed. Even the chickens were sold for slaughter, with no one stopping by for eggs.

But about four years ago, as interest in farmers’ markets grew, farm operator Brian Simmons began extending the stand’s schedule.

Soon, he was raising turkeys for Thanksgiving, keeping the 300 laying hens throughout the year and investing in later plantings of turnips, carrots, sweet potatos, cabbages and Brussels sprouts.

The greenhouses at the 120-acre farm trap enough winter sunlight to feed arugula, spinach and broccoli plants that can survive multiple freezes, protected only by a light cloth at night, he said.

Then there is the livestock, including 30 head of cattle, 15 pigs and 1,000 chickens, sometimes slaughtered for restaurants and organic food shops in the winter but usually awaiting the higher prices they can fetch at a summer farmer’s market.

“You’re spending money with May a long time away,” said Simmons, 38, a full-time farmer and father of three children, ages 1, 7, and 14. “The money doesn’t stop going away.”

Some of the expenses at Simmons Farm are covered by a winter Community Supported Agriculture program, through which the farm is paid in advance by customers who get a steady supply of whatever is being picked.

Last winter, the program brought in $22,000, while the farm sold another $10,000 in produce, eggs and meat to markets and restaurants.

Buoyed by that success, Simmons has started studying the technologies used by farmers in Maine and Vermont, who face even more forbidding winter weather.

But he and other growers have hesitated to invest in new equipment, waiting for a market to be established that would generate widespread, year-round interest in local food.

“People have to remember that the farm is still there,” said Simmons, who sells at three farmers’ markets per week in the summer. “It doesn’t just go to Florida for the winter.”

Farm Fresh says a permanent, indoor market will play that role, drawing chefs and supermarket buyers to its aisles at first, and later luring the farmers’ market set.

Griffen, who was raised on a citrus farm in Florida, said the Farm Fresh market would also promote value-added products that require processing but allow for a higher profit margin.

The group is looking for a 10,000-square-foot space that would include a commercial kitchen, allowing farmers or entrepreneurs to turn bruised fruits and vegetables into jams, jellies, salsas, tomato sauces, pies and sorbet.

The space could also help farmers sell their pesto and cheese, or to freeze apples and other fruit, sparing them from compost piles and “preserving the bounty for other seasons,” said Noah Fulmer, the Farm Fresh executive director.

“A lot of these farms could be doing more if there were a market for it,” Fulmer said. “They’re pretty eager to have a more stable income throughout the year.

“The fresh food is drawing people,” Fulmer said. “If people had a way to access that during the rest of the year they’d be pretty excited.”

bgedan@projo.com