Country Calendar recently featured the success of the Whangarei Farmers’ Market. Rural Living has previously investigated similar markets in the top of the country and found them to be a growing and popular trend. Recently we went to the historic city of Chichester in England.

Historically markets have been essential conduits of supply and demand.

The idea that the consumer can meet the grower is bringing the vital ingredient of human contact back into trade and barter.

Inadvertently, the mighty supermarkets did much to destroy this link.

Their seductive ability to provide fresh produce from half way across the globe is beginning to pale with the discerning public, who in many cases are obviously taking pleasure in their weekly trip to their local market.

Recently Rural Living visited one of 800 listed Farmers Markets in England, at Chichester.

The ancient town is dominated by its splendid Cathedral, and little of the original medieval street plan has been changed.

The shops and banks are all modern, but what gives Chichester its relaxed feel is that the main streets have been closed to wheeled traffic for several years.

The streets, suddenly made much wider by the absence of vehicles, are home to a fortnightly market, which has become an institution in recent years, and completes the historical circle of this once important English market town.

To be eligible to trade at Chichester Farmers’ market produce must nominally at least, have been grown or produced within thirty miles of the city.

Contrary to perceptions, the people of England are capable of producing food as diverse as many other countries, and the farmers’ markets have injected a fresh sense of innovation.

A case in point was the Stonegate Dairy which started a dozen years ago and was bought by an ex-city insurance broker whose wife “wanted him out of the house”.

It has now become a thriving family owned and worked business, exporting cheese to France (of all places) and as far away as Canada.

“We do markets, and this one in particular, more as a promotional thing,” the owner Cliff Dyball explained. “We have kept the title The Traditional Cheese Dairy because we concentrate on English recipes, and not continental type stuff.

We have a range of cheeses using cows, ewes, or goats’ milk, all from local herds and all using vegetarian rennet.”

If anyone thought English cheese recipes consisted of Cheddar or Stilton, then one sniff at the magnificent aroma from Cliff’s stall should have convinced them that the French have no monopoly on the art.

A slightly curious example of promotion at the market was provided by the Weald and Downland Museum.

This award winning museum charts English rural life from the earliest days of settlement.

Around 50 buildings have been restored on the museum’s site, including a working water mill which grinds flour daily, and provides a valuable addition to the income of this unique enterprise.

Henry Warner, head of operations at the museum, said that taking a market stall has proved a very valuable way of advertising its’ existence, as well as providing locals with a regular supply of healthy, stone ground flour.

Weather and season do play a part in the life of Chichester Farmers’ market, and one stall holder commented that “people seem a little late arriving this morning after the rain last night.”

Everything to keep body and soul together seemed to be available at one stall or another, and during the summer and autumn certainly, it should be possible to exist solely from the market.

Attendance is a social occasion, and there were families taking advantage of what can be a stressful job (shopping) to be together and accomplish a necessary task at the same time.

Despite the disadvantage of having to carry bags, the elderly were much in evidence.

As people begin to realise that produce is seasonally available, and not always thanks to the supermarket chains, there may be a growing acceptance of the weekly (or more) Farmers’ markets.

Another regular stall-holder pointed out that for young families the market is a very useful part of their education.

“Having something available on a stall for only a short time requires an explanation to a child used to getting whatever they want straight off the supermarket shelf.

“It’s a real opportunity to learn – they don’t always accept it but it is a start!”

The hugely dense population in England has seen a mushrooming of Farmers’ markets in recent years.

Here in New Zealand we don’t have that level of population to support 800 separate markets, but if trends are anything to go by, then it is certain our outlets here will increase.

We have one huge advantage of course, and that is our clement climate.

The presence of olives in Chichester, which never have nor will grow in Sussex, was explained by the fact they were marinated – to an Olde English recipe of course – the night before.

There is not much an enterprising grower in the top half of New Zealand cannot grow, and the opportunity to exchange banter with customers, means that shopping could almost become a pleasure again.