Submit to market forces

Farmers' markets are growing in strength. Sybil Kapoor looks on the brighter side of the farming crisis as spring vegetables arrive fresh in town

The Independent: 23 April 2001

While the distress suffered by livestock farmers is uppermost in our minds, the foot-and-mouth epidemic may have one positive outcome. Many people are taking a fresh look at the relationship between town and country. This association is closest at farmers' markets where producers bring what they have grown, reared or made to sell direct to the public. If they're not producers from within a defined region, it's not a farmers' market.

After the disease broke out in February, all of the 300 such farmers' markets that had sprung up in the past three years closed. Producers lost their income overnight, farm shops lost visitors, cooks lost the pleasure of buying the freshest local food and everyone who had got into the habit of going to market missed the social interaction. Yet they're so determined to maintain the momentum and loyalty they have built up that a third of these markets have reopened.

Another sign that markets have come of age is the publication of two excellent books encouraging us to go and buy home-grown food. Henri- etta Green's Farmers' Market Cookbook (£12.99, Kyle Cathie) and The Farmers' Market Cookbook by Nina Planck (£18.99, Hodder & Stoughton) both include seasonal information and recipes, answering converts' queries about how to make the most of local produce. The first explores the history and role of the producers, the latter deals more with the practicalities of choosing fruit and vegetables.

Nina Planck is the founder and director of the London Farmers' Markets. In 1999 she decided to invest £1,400, and a great deal of energy, in setting up the first farmers' market in London. "It was purely for selfish reasons. I desperately wanted to eat seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables," she says.

She now runs eight weekly markets in London, with more in the pipeline. "These markets alone put £2m a year into the rural economy," she says. "Direct sales are going to be the way of the future." Planck envisages a countryside where subsidies, set-asides and food miles will be a thing of the past. It will be populated by small, mutually supportive businesses growing what we want to eat. Livestock farmers will generate work for local abattoirs and butchers, fruit farms will support artisan jam makers, and so on. Eventually, Ms Planck would like her markets to act as pick-up points for restaurants, who in turn would highlight the farmers' produce on their menus, whether it be Kent apple juice or Romney Marsh lamb.

Such Utopian visions are still some way from reality at Liverpool's farmers' market. Set up by restaurateur Martin Ainscough last summer, it has not been such plain sailing. "We face three main problems," he explains. "First, many people do not realise that home-grown food is seasonal. After the glut in July, they couldn't understand why the fruit selection had shrunk in November. Secondly, we still need constant exposure to remind people that we are here. And lastly, we are still dependent on the weather being clement." Nevertheless, the market has thrived, with up to 30 stalls selling eggs, lemon curd, smoked fish, cheeses from three different makers, Welsh Black lamb from Anglesea, organic meat and, as the winter months pass, an ever wider range of organic and locally grown fruit and vegetables to tempt shoppers away from the supermarket. The next will be on Saturday 19 May.

Farmers' markets can nurture producers, encouraging them to extend their range. Joan Hardingham set up one of the first farmers' markets in 1998 at her Alder Carr Farm, Needham in Suffolk. "We run a farm shop and a 20-acre pick-your-own fruit and veg farm, but we were feeling the pressure from the supermarkets," she recalls. "I thought it might be a good way of getting more people on to the farm." Today and every third Saturday of the month she has 25 stallholders selling everything from honey to shiitake mushrooms. The demand for winter lettuces persuaded her to let out a polytunnel for someone else to grow rocket, sorrel, baby chard, salad burnet and garlic chives for the market. Ms Hardingham, meanwhile, has expanded into home-made ice cream (made from local cream) and in the winter, frozen soft fruit.

Others have found farmers' markets unexpectedly solving their financial problems. Two years ago, Warwickshire market gardeners Karen and Nigel New supplied Birmingham wholesale market with cucumbers and round tomatoes. "Our income was dropping while our expenses were going up," recalls Karen New. "People forget that food prices have remained static for years." They were invited to attend the first farmers' market at Stratford-upon-Avon. Now, in response to their customers, they are growing and selling peppers, chillies, aubergines, radishes, baby beetroot and lettuces, as well as strawberries, cucumbers and all sorts of tomatoes. "We're doing really well," she says, "we've given up the wholesale business and supply seven local monthly markets instead."

The course of some farming businesses has changed for the better by their involvement, too. Two years ago, John Carter, a free-range pig breeder in Devon, met three like-minded livestock farmers while selling at his local markets. Together they developed a nationwide meat mail order business called The Freerangers. "Since I sell only my sausages, bacon and pork, and they respectively sell their lamb, guinea fowl and organic chickens and Aberdeen Angus beef, bison and venison, it seemed sensible to pool our resources," he says. All four are flourishing despite the temporary closure of the local markets.

In areas most acutely affected by foot-and-mouth the closure of farmers' markets has proved to local authorities how popular they are as well as how important to the local economy. In one of the areas worst hit by the disease, the organisers of Hexham farmers' market in Northumberland, for example, have been inundated with requests for it to restart. The next is on 26 May.

Whether from a farm shop or farmers' market, the opportunities of buying local produce fresher than you'll find at any supermarket are growing every month. With spring rhubarb, the first asparagus, late-season leeks, purple sprouting broccoli, Pink Fir Apple and Lintzer Delikatesse potatoes just some of the varieties to choose from now, it's hard to resist market forces.

• For further information: London Farmers' Market (020-7704 9659); www.londonfarmersmarket.com. The National Association of Farmers' Markets, South Vaults, Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB (01225 787914). Send sae for a national list or look on www.farmersmarkets.net. The Freerangers (01404 850228)