Farmers' market vs supermarket

The popularity of locally produced food jumped from the shopping basket to the political battlefield yesterday as the Conservatives and the Government fought to position themselves as the champions of real British food.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, and David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, followed millions of shoppers by singing the praise of locally produced organic foods and farmers’ markets, when they spoke to the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday.

Mr Cameron, who trumpeted the cause of locally produced food before Christmas, called for a new wave of food patriotism and for a fairer relationship between supermarkets and producers. In Oxford he demanded clearer labelling to help consumers to buy British, claiming that food grown overseas but processed in Britain was being sold as British food.

“Many people want to eat British whenever possible,” he said, not just “out of a sense of solidarity or a desire to limit carbon emissions” but because local food often tastes better than that transported long distances.

He said that consumers needed far more rigorous and transparent food labelling to help them to make informed choices.

Mr Miliband called on farmers to reconnect with consumers. “The market in local, seasonal and organic produce is set to grow,” he said. He said that “small is vulnerable”, and called on producers to “consolidate or co-operate”.

Mr Cameron, on the other hand, said: “Instead of volume, we need to build value,” and argued that planning laws should make it easier to establish farm shops and farmers’ markets.

He also insisted that growing food locally would be in the interests of national security. “In this dangerous world, where we talk about the importance of energy security, we cannot afford to dismiss the importance of food security,” he said.

The political parties have suddenly awoken to the popularity of local food among voters. There were no farmers’ markets in 1997; now there are 600. Research suggests that about 20 million people, or one third of the population, visit a farmers’ market every year and buy £2 billion of products, from local apples to specialist cheese and sausages. The sector is still dwarfed, however, by the supermarkets, which sell £80 billion of food a year.

The markets are no longer confined to rural locations, but have become popular in towns and there are more than a dozen farmers’ markets in London alone. They used to be held only monthly, but are increasingly open every week.

Gareth Jones, of the Farmers’ Retail and Market Association, said that the markets met the demands of consumers and farmers. “People are coming to farmers’ markets to seek out fresh and local food,” he said. “If you buy good products from a farmers’ market, then because the chain is so small and produced on a craft scale, the food is excellent.”

He added that a backlash against globalisation and a desire to help local communities had helped the rise of farmers’ markets. It is also being spurred by increased concern about the environmental impact of flying vegetables in from the other side of the world, he said.

A small farmer can easily earn more than ten times as much selling the same food at a farmers’ market than to a supermarket, Mr Jones said. “It is a massive difference. It has become a very important lifeline. We used to wonder if a farm could survive without supplying supermarkets, but now many are doing that.”

The profitability for farmers is not because they can charge higher prices — several pieces of research have suggested that the costs for most foods are comparable — but because the farmers no longer have to share the profit margins with the dominant supermarkets.

Supermarkets were originally sniffy about farmers’ markets, but some are now paying them the ultimate compliment. Chains such as Waitrose and Asda are trying to supply foods grown near their shops.

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