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The Food Programme: Farmers' Markets

Farmers' Markets

05/08/2007

BBC Radio 4 - The Food Programme, Farmers' Markets

Sheila Dillon investigates the British love affair with farmers' markets.

Sheila Dillon investigates the British love affair with farmers' markets and asks to what extent they have remained true to their original values and ideas.

Our love affair with farmer’s markets began ten years ago when the first one was organised in Bath. Now there are more than five hundred up and down the country. With food sales at these markets generating hundreds of millions of pounds Sheila Dillon asks if they have remained true to the original values and ideas. 

After hearing what the organisers in Bath wanted to achieve Sheila visits a farmers’ market in New Yorks’ Union Square which inspired producers in the UK to take up the idea. The market manager Davy Hughes explains how people on benefits are given help to shop at the market.

We also hear how the first UK farmers’ market was intended to be in Knowsley in Liverpool in 1996 – as part of a government plan to get fresh and local food into deprived areas.

Gareth Jones from the national organisation FARMA which certifies farmers’ markets explains why few markets have been set up in less affluent parts of the UK. He also explains why all markets should follow the same set of rules.

Henrietta Green visits one of the FARMA certified markets in Wimbledon and talks to Mark Handley, Director of London Farmers’ Markets about their policy on producers. She also joins Sheila in the studio to explain why she thinks farmers’ markets haven’t fulfilled their potential.

The Food Programme’s Dan Saladino travels to Bath to find out how it has developed in the last ten years.

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