In 2021, WorldFMC published its First Farmers Market Report in collaboration with Centro Studi Divulga, which conducted research on farmers markets in 8 countries. The report argues that the existence of civil society-led farmers markets exist far more widely than generally understood and reveals the positive impacts of farmers markets on social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
Foreword by Maurizio Martina, Vice Director General of FAO
This report provides precious information and analyses of the farmers markets, while presenting a superb opportunity to understand the incredible experience that has influenced the agri-food systems in many parts of the world. It reveals the experiences of smallholder family farmers in rural areas as well as the big urban companies, that step by step have become a wide spread phenome- non at a large scale, contributing but also changing the relation between producers and consumers. The first intuition was to go back to value the territories with focus on the quality of not only the products but more importantly, the human relations. All these elements created trust and once again consolidated the credibility and the reputation of the famers markets among the population/citizens. This is about social capital that doesn’t take the qualiity of the products for granted, that cares about the stories of production, values the uniqueness of the lo-cal gastronomy as an alternative to homologation of the food industry that is why that every single Farmers Market is a unique and inimitable world of itself. As it has been highlighted many times, in markets, the citizens become coproducers and the result is not always evident for all. The Famers Markets are the squares of trust and their contribution to the economy is now very significant. In many countries having the possibility to directly sell the products is one of the main sources of income support to the farmers, fishermen and livestock producers. And this is how a so-called multifunctional agriculture could be achieved. Obviously there are still many problems to be solved and this report will help us to better understand some of the needs that should be addressed immediately in order to improve our current reality. Today this is our actual Challenge; how to strengthen and build on these valuable experiences? How to expand this initiative and to which areas? The information and the analytical work that you will find in this excellent piece of work can definitely help responding to these questions.
Read the full report linked here.
