58 // DISCOVERY | SUSTAINABILITY
THE sustainability of farmers markets TEXT // NICK BLOOD This article explores the many ways local farmers markets can help promote sustainability. But before we get to that, a little question: Why doesn’t ANU have its own Farmers Market? Canberra itself has a wealth of markets, and yet we don’t? It’s even more baffling when you consider all the university students we offer as potential customers. This is a campus – and a generation – that is often keenly interested in healthy, sustainable eating. So why don’t we have our own on-campus markets like other universities in Australia offer? It’s a simple question, and it comes with an even simpler answer: it’s because nobody has tried to start one up. A few months ago, I grabbed a coffee with the student Mayra Escobedo to talk about an O-Week project the Environment Collective was working on: a guide to sustainable food options around Canberra. Myra said a farmer’s market would be a great way to launch it. I agreed, but was sceptical about pulling it off – the guide alone seemed ambitious, a market seemed like a whole lot more on top. Unperturbed, she pulled out a laptop and shot some emails off.
challenges, one meal at a time.” Let’s see how a farmers market addresses these eight steps, shall we?
1. Buy local and seasonal: Farmers markets provide local, seasonal produce, reducing the distance that food needs to travel, the amount of refrigeration it needs to stay fresh, and the amount of packaging required. Supporting local businesses also promotes sustainability beyond the environmental by building a sense of community, and redistributing wealth away from vast conglomerates towards smaller, more mindful businesses.
That’s how easy it is to start. Seeing it through is another thing of course, but if you want to at least try to make something good happen in this world, you should know how easy it is to take those first steps – as easy as writing an email. You might find out, as I learned from Mayra, that once you start the rest eventually falls into place. Why bother, though? What’s the value of a farmers market in terms of sustainability? Sustainable Table, an environmental notfor-profit that provides Australians with the tools and information to make ethical eating easy, has a useful resource that we can look to for guidance. According to them: “Up to 60 per cent of our personal eco-footprint is embodied in the food that we buy. By following eight simple steps to sustainability, we have the power to overcome today’s environmental
2. Buy chemical free, organic, or biodynamic: Markets specialize in this kind of stuff. Many smaller producers take pride in the fact that their produce is organic or biodynamic! It’s important to understand the downsides of practices like organic farming, such as increased land clearing, but overall it’s still probably better to be buying organic, and it certainly tastes better!
