But unlike the rest of the agriculture industry, it s also a free market. Finally, fresh, seasonal produce tastes better because it s fresh and seasonal. Ordinary produce is picked unripe, jostled by sorting machinery, stored, shipped, stored again, and artificially ripened. Along the way it is waxed and sprayed to prevent wrinkling and rotting. The average supermarket pear is stored for one to nine months.
Farmers markets revive market towns and run-down urban centres.
Often despite initial resistance, local shop owners find that markets increase their business. And still, more communities want markets than there are farmers to supply them. Nor are markets merely a middle class phenomenon. In neighbourhoods ill-served by supermarkets, they greatly improve access to fresh produce. The US runs two schemes to increase fruit and vegetable consumption by the poor and by women and children who are nutritionally at risk.