Local food for local people

WALES - Autumn is a time of mellow fruitfulness for farmers' markets across Wales. It's harvest time and the stalls are full of fresh vegetables and fruit.

In some ways the past is informing the present - and the future - for the farmers' markets phenomenon. Elderly people can remember when farmers would take their produce to town on market days, and some ancient charter markets still accommodate the odd local grower selling his own produce.

In the days before "food miles" became something of a political issue in the age of globalisation and climate change, people bought local because there was little alternative.

Then came the supermarkets, and the stalls in many town marketplaces were taken over by traders selling anything from bric-a-brac and cheap trinkets from the Far East to food from who-knows-where.

Now local food produced for and by local people is back in fashion. And shoppers able to choose green beans from Africa and carrots from the Middle East in the dehumanised aisles of the supermarket are seizing the chance to buy local produce in a transaction that involves the exchange of conversation as well as money.

Source: icWales