SOMERSET Farmers Markets (SFM) will shortly be celebrating a year on The Boyle Cross, after it spent more than 20 years at The Cheese and Grain. And the not-for-profit organisation is reminding people the important role it can play in the local community.
“Food helps nurture communities, connects us to the land and the locality, and directly affects biodiversity,” said market co-ordinator Hugh Thomas. “On the surface, a farmers market might seem charming, novel, and a ‘nice to have’. But they can also be, when allowed, integral to the towns and communities in which they reside.
“But of course, what is a market without lots of people to support it? 11 months in, and with almost 20 traders on board, SFM at Boyle Cross is well on its way in providing Frome with a more visible, regular alternative to commodified and ecologically questionable food that can play an ethical part in fixing our relationship with food and farming.
“A few weeks ago, listeners of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme heard about how the “global food system is spiralling out of control,” and that “corporations have been allowed too much power over what we eat.”
“Listeners would’ve also heard that, however formidable these issues, the power to affect positive change is not out of our grasp, and part of the solution in fixing the broken food system is not to treat food as a commodity, but, as the experts put it, support the livelihoods of local farmers and producers in selling their wares directly in villages, towns and cities. ‘In fixing a food crisis,’ said the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, ‘we know that works’.”
Somerset Farmers Markets at Boyle Cross, BA11 1AJ, next takes place on September the 9th, and every second Saturday of the month, 9am-1pm. Keep up to date with market dates and new traders by signing up to SFM’s newsletter: somersetfarmersmarkets.co.uk/email-newsletters/
