To Market, to Market

To market, to market

To buy a fat pig

Home again, home again

Jiggedy jig

While it is possible to purchase most food products from a supermarket it is not possible to acquire what a growing number of consumers are demanding, and that is fresh quality food from a known source. Turn back the dial, however, to the era of the nursery rhyme and you get the venue for exactly that, the farmers' market.

Popular in Europe and the West Coast of America, farmers' markets are now forging ahead in Australia. According to the Australian Farmers' Markets Association (AFMA), the number of farmers' markets around Australia has grown from 30 odd in 2002 to over 80 trading regularly across all states. Sydney alone has 14 metropolitan markets while Victoria has 30 plus scattered around the State.

Although each market varies according to local product and community demand, all have the same goal - to provide an outlet for locally grown and prepared foods says Chairman of AFMA, Jane Adams,

"Essentially it's that the stallholders are the farmers or the family or the makers or the bakers or the hunters who have procured the goods: they then sell that food directly to the consumer. There is not a middle man in the food chain."

Consumer interest in the source and quality of food has been growing with the increasing industrialisation of food. Concerns about herbicides, insecticides and genetically modified fruit and vegetables are regularly raised in mainstream media. Mad cow disease and, more recently avian bird flu, have not helped the meat and poultry industries either. Consumers are becoming more discerning about food and, in doing so want to know where it comes from and what processes it has undergone before they buy. In many stores in Europe now, meat, fruit and vegetables are sold alongside a photo and biography of the farm or farmer that has supplied it.

In Australia, independent greengrocers, butchers or providores can give you some details about the producer, but at farmers' markets you can talk directly to the source.

Jan Power's Farmers Markets in Brisbane, is a good example. She has two regular markets which run alternatively every Saturday morning in New Farm and Indooroopilly. Between them they average over 100 stalls with around 300 marketeers selling their own goods to around 8,000 shoppers each week. Marketeers travel from as far as the New England and Northern Rivers areas in the South, Gympie in the north, Toowoomba and Childers in the West as well as the Gold and Sunshine Coast hinterlands. .

Along with that colourful, buzzy market atmosphere, replete with entertainers and plenty of breakfast stalls, a huge variety of produce is available ranging from Stanthorpe apples and Warwick vegetables to local seafood and oysters. Barambah organic milk, rich farm cheeses, hand churned butter, Bangalow pork, smoked chicken, quails, uniquely baked breads, cakes and even homemade lemonade.

While organic and non-organic products are available, consumers can discuss with producers the methods they use for production and decide from there.

Recent research undertaken by DPI Victoria indicates an estimated $20 million turnover passes through Australian farmers' markets annually in that state with an economic impact of $40 million.

This impact has not gone unnoticed by the Federal Government. A report released late last year from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) was launched by the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Richard Colbeck

Senator Colbeck said 'farmers' markets have an energising effect on both the small farms that participate and their associated rural communities, fuelled by a higher level of consumer interest in local produce and a willingness to support the local farming community'.

The Senator is encouraging further research into the creation and management of farmers markets in Australia.

A list of Farmers Markets around Australia , is available on the website

www.tradewatchoz.org/localfood