Farmers’ markets – As green as they seem?
We’ve all heard it before; if you want to live sustainably a good way to start is through the food you eat. But where is the food coming from? Rachael Chick writes about how location and sustainable food go hand-in-hand.
Michael Champion at his stall in Taylor Square. Image: Rachael Chick
A recent study of an average Sydneysider’s shopping basket showed that the food had travelled at least 80,919 kilometres to get there. That’s the equivalent of driving from Sydney to Melbourne 80 times.
The concept of food miles is gaining currency the world over. The huge UK supermarket chain Tesco has begun to label its produce with ‘food miles’, as has Walmart in the USA. Chains such as Aldi in Australia are considering following suit.
With all this attention on the distance your food has travelled, it’s no wonder that farmers’ markets purporting to sell local produce are popping up everywhere.
But how environmentally friendly are these farmers’ markets?
Michael Champion is a grower from Mangrove Mountain, near Gosford, NSW, who sells his produce at the newly opened Taylor Square market.
When I ask him about the growing popularity of farmers’ markets, he looks irritated.
“There are only a handful of proper farmers’ markets in Sydney. This one and the Eveleigh Markets are an example. A lot of the others are just resellers markets.”
Champion says another problem he often encounters is consumers’ expectations. “They come and ask me why I don’t have carrots or onions. People have a supermarket mentality. No one grower can supply everything. Sometimes I get people asking why I don’t have bananas. Bananas are grown in Queensland! A genuine Sydney farmers’ market isn’t going to be able to stock them.”
He says that the demand for markets is higher, but that there are simply not enough farmers close to Sydney to supply this demand, and give consumers the range they would have in a supermarket. As a result, wholesalers are brought in to cover the gap, which dilutes the “sustainable” ethos of the market.
Clearly, farmers’ market stallholders take the market scene very personally, and Champion’s quick response reveals one of the main issues currently plaguing these markets: authenticity.
At an authentic farmers’ market, all the products are grown, raised, or made by the people selling them.
However, as Jane Adams of the Australian Farmers’ Market Association says, many markets have been trying to cash-in on the sustainability trend without meeting this criterion.
“There are a number of markers in Sydney that call themselves farmers’ markets,” she says. “But they do not meet the definition of an authentic farmers’ market.”
Cathy Wills, from Sydney Sustainable Markets, agrees.
“There are numbers of markets around Sydney that brand themselves as farmers’ markets, but actually have a fairly limited number of farmers on site. Many of the stallholders are in fact re-sellers of products that they have purchased from a central produce market, and therefore it is very difficult to determine where that product originates from” she says.
This means that stallholders may be selling the same food you could buy from a supermarket, and the produce may have been freighted from the other side of the country, or even worse – for your carbon footprint – overseas. This defeats the environmental purpose of visiting a farmers market in the first place.
So how do you know if your local market is a genuine farmers’ market? If you live in Victoria, you’re in luck: the Victorian Farmers Market Association has started an accreditation program for markets. For a farmer-stallholder to gain accreditation, they must have grown, raised, or made the produce they sell – and they must prove this to the Association before they can display the accreditation logo. Furthermore, for an entire market in a metropolitan area to receive a logo, 90 per cent of stallholders need to be accredited.
That’s Victoria, what about those of us who don’t happen to live in the garden state? Where’s our accredited clean conscience? According to Adams, the Australian Farmers’ Market Association is hoping to import the accreditation scheme into other states.
For the moment though, a list of authentic farmers markets is available on the Australian Farmers’ Market Association website.
Carbon Miles
One of the markets on the list is Sydney’s Eveleigh Markets, which runs from 8am-1pm every Saturday. I’m curious about the claims of farmers markets to sell more local food than supermarkets, and so I visited Eveleigh market as part of a mini experiment in supermarket versus farmers market produce in carbon miles. Taking a small sample of fruits and vegetables from each, I compared where they came from, how far they travelled, and how much they cost.
Apples: A staple in many a lunchbox, many Australians don’t realise that apples are a seasonal fruit. Fortunately for your humble reporter, they are in season in autumn and winter, so I stocked up on my favourite- the pink lady.
The apples I bought were from Kurrawong Organics, and picked near Bathurst; a trip of about 200km. I was assured they were fresh, and they definitely tasted like it. They cost me about 5 dollars a kilo.
For the sake of consistency, I bought Pink Ladies from Coles as well. A kilogram cost me 5 dollars and according to the sticker, they came from Batlow- about 450 kilometres from Sydney.
Winner: Eveleigh markets. The same price, but 250km closer to home as the supermarket product.
It is difficult to trace where fresh produce from Coles come from. There tends to be a difference day to day, judging on where there is more stock and where the middleman distribution markets get their produce from. My assessments therefore had to be based on where the most likely source of the produce in NSW was from.
Carrots: The biggest carrot growing region in NSW is the Murrimbidgee catchment in the south of the state. The major towns in the catchment area are Leeton and Griffith, about 550km from Sydney. Carrots from Coles will set you back 2 dollars a kilo.
Back at Eveleigh, I bought carrots from Windsor, about 60 kilometres from Sydney for 3 dollars a kilo from Eruk Putrino, who is selling food from his and his neighbour’s farms.
Winner: Eveleigh Markets. The price is only one dollar more, and the produce travels nearly 500 fewer kilometres.
Broccoli: The biggest broccoli growing region in NSW is the central and north west basin, the area near Bathurst, about 320 km from Sydney. Broccoli from Coles is 4 dollars a kilo. My Eveleigh Markets purchase was broccoli from Conowindra, in the central north west basin for 8 dollars a kilo.
Winner: Coles. From the same region, at half the price, I have to choose Coles.
Of course, it’s not just about how far the food has travelled, it’s also about time spent in storage. Recently, apples from one of the big supermarkets were tested and found to be about 10 months old. This cold storage takes energy and chemicals that freshly picked fruit and vegetables don’t use.
There are also other reasons to shop at a farmers market; you are supporting the producers directly, there’s a friendly community atmosphere that supermarkets just don’t have, and there are often samples to snack on while you shop!
Sustainable eating
A recent CSIRO study found that what we eat makes up a third of our carbon footprint. So, how do we eat sustainably?
Here are a few simple guidelines to follow:
Eat more fresh foods. Fewer chemicals have gone into their production.
Know where your food comes from. “Where possible, buy locally or regionally for your staples – fruit and vegies, meat, cheese, etc. Avoid products from overseas where there is a great equivalent local product. And save your food miles for a few imported luxuries now and then!” Cathy Wills, of Sydney Sustainable Markets says.
Eat seasonally. Food that is in season locally is going to be fresher than food imported from overseas (and from another season). It also means that you can enjoy eating summer’s first peach or mango when you haven’t had one in months.
Grow your own produce. “Even if you live in an apartment, you can grow things. I live in an apartment and I’ve got basil, lemongrass, and capsicum. They’re easy to grow and taste fantastic,” says Jane Adams, of the Australian Farmers Market Association.
Farm with your community. Some suburbs (for example, Glebe in the inner-west) have community gardens – plots of land where anyone can plant and harvest what they want.
Keep chickens. For those with more space, keeping chickens is a great option. Not only will they eat your food scraps (reducing your contribution to landfill), but they provide delicious, free range eggs as well.
Drink fewer soft drinks and bottled juices and if buying takeaway coffee, bring your own mug.
Choose food and beverages that have little to no packaging.
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