Notting Hill Farmers' Market

Food travels too far from farm to kitchen in too much packaging, polluting the environment and wasting energy. Less tangibly, the global farming and distribution system alienates us from the food we eat. Farming resembles a remote, high-tech industry more than gardening. How many people know where their food comes from, how it's grown and when it's in season?

Nor has the Green Revolution been an unqualified success for farmers themselves. Not only are farmers dependent on costly inputs such as fertiliser, hybrid seeds, pesticides and equipment. They are also victims of their very efficiency: overproduction, falling food prices and rural job losses are the price paid. Even as they stagger from crisis to crisis (BSE, drought), farmers are vilified as backward and reliant on subsidies.

Instead of sniggering when French and Spanish peasants march on Brussels, pitchforks in hand, perhaps we should accept that farm policy is failing consumers and farmers equally. What is to be done?

In Britain, the adjective 'American-style' often implies newfangled or over-commercialised. But American-style farmers' markets have a fine reputation here, and with good reason. Farmers' markets are a low-cost, local and tangible response to farmers' woes and consumers' worries. In the past 25 years, farmers' markets have burgeoned in the US, increasing the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, renewing urban neighbourhoods and saving family farms. Farmers sell more than $1 billion in fresh produce at 3,000 farmers' markets annually. The state of Massachusetts alone � population 6.1 million, smaller than London's � supports 100 weekly farmers' markets.

These markets are strictly defined. Farmers sell their own fruit and vegetables, eggs, cheeses, flowers, honey and other farm products directly to the public. No one may purchase produce for resale, and all farms must be within a defined regional area. Most markets occur weekly on a public site, such as a car park or school yard. London has four, in Islington, Camden Lock, Swiss Cottage, and Notting Hill. For hours and locations, see www.LondonFarmersMarkets.com.

Who benefits from farmers' markets?

• Farmers. There is no middleman. The farmer takes the full retail price � often three times the wholesale price. Unlike at the lonely farm gate, customers are concentrated in time and space at markets: thousands of shoppers may pass by during a four- to six-hour market day. Small and medium-sized farms, which are most threatened by the rise of agri-business, benefit because farmers' markets absorb their uneven supply � unlike large distributors and supermarkets.

• The Environment. Food miles are reduced and packaging is minimal. Markets are a fine example of just-in-time delivery, the goal of every inventory manager: produce doesn't languish in warehouses, so less is wasted. Although markets seldom require farmers to use environmentally-friendly methods, consumers push growers in that direction. Farmers who might otherwise hesitate to switch to organic production, for example � often because conversion is costly � have an immediate, local market.

• Consumers. Shoppers have access to fresh, local food and they can ask farmers directly about how it's grown. In food shopping, most consumers are at the mercy of powerful, remote actors � large farms, distributors and retailers control the market. But at farmers' markets, the farmer/retailer is responsive to consumer demands. It is common for farmers to plant new crops or change practices simply because shoppers request it.

Prices are often lower at farmers' markets, because there is no middleman, there is plenty of competition at each market and overhead costs are low. But unlike the rest of the agriculture industry, it's also a free market. When food supply and prices are not distorted by government interference such as the CAP, farmers grow the crops consumers want to buy � not the ones that are subsidised � and sell them at a price consumers will pay.

Finally, fresh, seasonal produce tastes better because it's fresh and seasonal. Ordinary produce is picked unripe, jostled by sorting machinery, stored, shipped, stored again, and artificially ripened. Along the way it is waxed and sprayed to prevent wrinkling and rotting. The average supermarket pear is stored for one to nine months. At farmers' markets, eggs are two days old, not two weeks, and apples and spinach haven't lost their Vitamin C and folic acid. Why eat rock-hard Israeli tomatoes or watery California strawberries when you could wait two weeks for the English crop and eat them one day old?

Communities. Farmers' markets revive market towns and run-down urban centres. Often despite initial resistance, local shop owners find that markets increase their business. Greater Washington, DC (population 3 million), already supports more than two dozen weekly markets. And still, more communities want markets than there are farmers to supply them.

Most markets are organised by some combination of private individuals, local authorities and farmers. Local authorities can offer a free site and help with publicity and administration. Once a weekly market is established, publicity takes care of itself.

The growth in farmers' markets in the UK is astounding. In March 1998, the Bath council's farmers' market was the lone market in Britain � and a great success. Today some 150 towns and cities have held farmers' markets.

For a complete list, send a SASE to:
National Association of Farmers' Markets
South Vaults
Green Park Station
Green Park Road
Bath, BA1 1JB

Nina Planck grew up on a fruit and vegetable farm in Virginia. The Plancks still sell their produce exclusively at 16 weekly farmers' markets in Greater Washington, D.C. She is the organiser of the London farmers' markets. For more information, write wheatland@planck.demon.co.uk