Only Reconnect - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 121

countryside matters. Their Heartland Sustainable Agriculture Network
brings farmers together to enhance experimentation, exchange and
education. The network organizes farmers in small clusters to work
together on issues that are important to them. These include Covered
Acres (farmers in central Kansas experimenting with legume cover crops);
Smoking Hills (farmers working on grazing management in Saline
County); Resourceful Farmers (crop, livestock and dairy farmers in south-
central Kansas who give on-farm demonstrations of rotational grazing
and clean-water practices); and Quality Wheat (organic farmers in west
Kansas seeking to improve soil fertility and increase the protein content
of wheat). The network is a clearing house for ideas on sustainable
agriculture, helps to build support for new ideas, nurtures leadership,
creates confidence amongst farmers to try something new, and works with
conventional agricultural institutions to build support for rural regener-
ation through sustainable agriculture. 42
Farmers' Markets
Farmers' markets are another simple idea, already spreading like wildfire
through farm communities in both North America and the UK. Sell your
produce directly to a consumer, and you get 80-90 per cent of the food
pound instead of the paltry 8-10 per cent through normal marketing
mechanisms. Some farmers, of course, already do this through farm shops
and pick-your-own enterprises, of which there are 1500-2000 in the UK.
Others are beginning to make use of direct sales by mail and via the
Internet. But the best option for many is farmers' markets, which have
emerged on a huge scale in recent years in the US. There were nearly 2900
farmers' markets registered with the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) in the year 2000, up from 1700 in 1994 - though some suggest
that there are as many again operating at the very local level. The annual
turnover in these markets is more than US$1 billion. Again, income goes
directly into the pockets of the 20,000 farmers selling their produce. The
USDA estimates that 6700 of these farmers now use farmers' markets as
their sole marketing output. Each week, about 1 million customers visit
farmers' markets, nine-tenths of whom live within 11 kilometres of the
market. 43
The benefits that these farmers' markets bring are substantial, improv-
ing access to local food, increasing returns for farmers, and contributing
to community life and local cultures by bringing large numbers of people
together on a regular basis. The contributions to local economies are