Good for the environment, Good for you: Make yours a local lunch in Farmers' Market Month

The National Farmers’ Retail & Markets Association (FARMA) has teamed up with Sustain, the food and farming campaigning organisation, to promote strong reasons to ‘Make yours a local lunch’ during Farmers’ Market Month this September.

Buying food from local farms and farmers’ markets is not just good for your taste-buds, health and wealth, there are wider benefits too. Comparing some foods which travelled from field direct to farmers’ market or farm shop with the same products air-freighted to reach UK supermarket shelves from overseas, Sustain’s researchers found that the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with distribution were 650 times lower when food was bought locally from a farmers’ market. The ingredients for an air-freighted Sunday lunch created 37 kilograms of greenhouse gasses but when bought from local farms only 58.2 grams of greenhouse gasses were released – a reduction of 99.8 per cent(1).

‘Even for British produce there is usually a complex nationwide distribution network involved in getting food to the supermarket, which is not needed when you buy direct from local farmers,’ said Gareth Jones, managing agent for FARMA. ‘It is hard to beat the combination of freshness and traceability that comes from buying locally direct from the producers – and it supports the local community too.’

‘September is a bumper month for home-grown produce.  Farmers’ markets and farm shops will be piled high with sweetcorn, pumpkins, squashes, apples and pears, beef and pork, bacon and sausages, cheeses and other dairy produce, not to mention cakes, breads and apple juices.  With the ‘Make Yours a Local Lunch’ concept, we are encouraging farmers’ markets to show customers the great range of foods on offer, and introduce local cafés, hotels, restaurant and pubs to this wealth of produce too. There will be information at the markets and farm shops about how far the food has travelled  – customers will be pleased to find that in some cases this is a few thousand metres, not a few thousand miles.’

For information about farmers’ markets, farm shops and Pick-Your-Own farms near you, visit www.farma.org.uk or send two first class stamps with your name and address to FARMA, PO Box 575, Southampton SO15 7BZ for a copy of the ‘Local Fare’ guide.


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For more information about FARMA and  ‘Make Yours a Local Lunch’, contact: Rita Exner 0845 45 88 420 e-mail:  justask@farma.org.uk


EDITOR'S NOTES:

(1) ‘Eating Oil’ by Andy Jones for Sustain and Elm Farm Research Centre, November 2001. For more information about the report contact Jeanette Longfield at Sustain on 0203 5596 777, e-mail:  jeanette@sustainweb.org
 

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