Act local think global.

OHOKA FARMERS MARKET YEAR ROUND since 2009

REAL FOOD REVOLUTION & FOOD de RESISTANCE EVERY FRIDAY

The Manifesto for Localisation starts with your Friday morning market.

Many of us have been making different choices about what we eat, who we buy our food from and how we grow and make our food for a while now.

Here in Ohoka we have been making that difference since 2009. This is something to celebrate!

Over the decade and more the market has been a place where many different small food artisans and artisan crafters have gathered to sell their wares.

After many years of centralised industrial corporate food production some of us became increasingly concerned that ‘conventional’ farming has in fact caused many wide ranging problems not just overseas, but right here in New Zealand.

Farmers Market have shaken up the food system, and as a result today we can be confident that with customers support we can access the fresh, local, ethical, sustainable and nutritious foods from the markets.

These food producers in particular are redefining and challenging the existing food system as are their customers.

Together we are changing the mindset that has enabled the industrial food system to be the force that it has become. This is what food revolution looks like and it’s happening at a local level right here in the Waimakariri.

The market is effectively a collective of many small businesses. Each business is individual and unique. As is the market itself. When stallholders join the market they become part of this diverse food and artisan craft community. The maker is ideally the seller of their product.

This alternative food system is a much needed parallel local based food system that supports and fosters the growth of growers, farmers  and producers who share in the localisation ethos. Core to local food success is the decentralisation of services and industries. Centralisation of business, industry and governance are the complete antithesis of healthy resilient food communities. The greater the distance we are from decisions and production of products and food the less resilient we are. A parallel food system needs to be able to operate along side, within and outside the existing industrial food paradigm. This is our challenge in the years ahead.

Globalistation of industry, during the recent neo liberal free market economy we have experienced, has left us in a very vulnerable place.

As a result of the global industrial mindset which promotes growth as the sign of success, we have a centralised system of corporate control. Little is produced locally, supply chains are long and complicated, compliance is suited to big industry, decisions that affect us directly are made elsewhere. These are market forces that we cannot control.

Sadly things have become more complicated over the years since we started the market. The Localisation movement started in the 1980’s as a reaction against an industrial food complex. Although farmers markets have grown in normality so too has the industry of Big Ag. It has grown bigger, more toxic, uglier and sinister. They have captured aspects of the localisation movement by their use of words; local, family, whanau, community, health and medicine. They control us with their financial support, their grants, their sponsorship, their propaganda. They have infiltrated our lives on every level from the soil quality to the biology of our children. They lobby government policy from medicines to land use. Many of us are incapable of recognising these pervasive means of control and many of us would struggle to survive without them.

We do not see a future in a reliance upon globalised industry standards, which increasingly move towards a dependence upon digital technology, intensive housing and more intensive mono agriculture nor Genetically Engineered food products. Instead we see a future in principles based firmly around the individual and the natural world. Perma-culture, the industry free version of organics and a holistic view that encompasses, well, everything! It is a way of life that values natures role in it and the importance of that role. We embrace technology that helps us not hinders us,

You can find aspects of this localisation movement in independent owner operator shops from medicine to pleasure, lifestyle artisan food entrepreneurs. food boxes, CSA's, food hubs and some community gardens.  It encompasses everything from the soil we grow our foods in to the businesses we trade with. These businesses encourage food sovereignty ie we own our own food on a local/regional level and we aim for food resilience in our communities which means communities have access to good quality locally grown seasonal food on a weekly basis all year round. Food resilience and food sovereignty need to be free from governments or industry influence.

Localism is a individuals collectively acting against corporate, market influence.

In times of crisis we get to see how resilient we can be. For the second time in our history, our food resilience was truly put to the test in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010/11 . Networks were disrupted or totally destroyed. Food businesses that fed others were no longer able to serve their function. Being an outdoors market helped us, as did our location away from other buildings in a country setting. We were also able to be determined to continue as usual. We became a place of calm during a period of immense local unrest and with the perseverance and sheer tenacity of the stallholders a place to access quality foods when other larger food businesses were compromised. After all food in the field needed harvesting. The market supported many food businesses which were unable to operate from their Christchurch places of business, and some became regular stallholders.

The second time our resilience was put to the test was during the Government enforced pandemic lockdowns of 2021; where we fared less well. Government regulations meant farmers markets could not operate and instead the Supermarket duopoly had precedence over the food supply as well as the fast food industry. This situation lasted for several long months. This was a most alarming time for those small producers and growers of food who effectively had to throw food away, lose an income and turn away customers who had relied upon the markets for their sustenance. The ramifications of this still ripple throughout our food community.

The enforced lockdowns on businesses exposed the power of the industrial food complex. The most obvious place you experience this every day is at the supermarket.

Supermarkets are the flag ship to a food system that is sick to the core.

Convenience is addictive. Supermarkets have abused our food landscapes. They have been allowed by Government policies and local town planners to become a largely unregulated duopoly of food control. They throw their weight around by dictating to local councils, they create food deserts whereby no smaller independent business that may look to compete with them can survive, they lure in small food artisans and cut them down on price, copy their products and destroy those businesses, they monopolise on farmed, grown foods by supporting those larger mono culture producers and effectively put the local smaller growers out of business once again on price. They sell mainly processed ultra refined foods that contribute largely to the heart and diabetes epidemic in our cultures. They are centralised which means overseas imports produced under a similar industrial standard destroy local markets, supply chains are long and operate on a just in time system which means it is highly vulnerable. Food that has to be fresh is adulterated to keep it that way, so quality or nutrition are not synonymous with supermarkets. Supermarkets may have a place but it needs to be a balanced one and fair.

You make a difference every time you shop at your farmers market. It is not necessary to understand the politics of food when you do your Friday morning shop. But for some it is essential to good digestion.

Greenwashing is what businesses do to hide what they don’t want you to know. Climate Change has become a marketing tool by the very corporations/governments who created many of the industries that got us in this pickle in the first place.

When you buy direct from your local growers it is hard to hide anything. Working with the seasons has long been the imperative of any good farmer or grower. Too many people make demands on the climate. Conventional farming is big, it’s called centralised corporate farming. Regenerative farming can show ‘conventional farming’ how to do it better. The emphasis on big farming relies upon the belief that the worlds population need protection from starvation. Yet we know that this is a fallacy constantly based upon corporate greed. Critics like Vandana Shiva convincingly claim there is a surplus of food in the world, much of it low quality. Starvation is more likely from distribution problems associated with socio economic geo political events.

How to get out of the pickle? Small is super special. Small, productive and economically viable can be local, Intensive land use as opposed to broad acre farming challenges local councils in how they measure productive land use.

The environment does matter. Localisation and the businesses it supports and enable, are forced to operate in a hostile centralised industrial environment.

Farmers markets are about good farmers and artisan producers who understand and appreciate the benefits of doing things on a smaller scale but also are aware of the obstacles in their way. To be successful they have to be adaptable. Ultimately with your support they will prosper during these culturally challenging times. They are part of a local food economy which operates parallel to the industrial centralised food economy. They are our real local food heroes.

A Parallel food system - a community of individuals, businesses and regional decision makers

Farmers Markets for some time now have been creating communities around food in places that can and want to support them. This support enables the good farmers, smart farmers and food producers around the world to embrace the opportunities that a farmers market might offer. Farmers Markets and those individual businesses can operate alongside other food systems if that system is balanced fairly.

Farmers Markets are also more than just food. There are calls for the localisation movement to shift up a gear.

Farmers Markets are the canary in the industrial food complex coalmine.

Good Farmers Markets create great communities that reach far beyond food. It is a trading community that buys and sells. Good Farmers Markets enable customers to become better informed about the place they live in, their local growers and what food is available seasonally, how to grow things, make things and learn about resilient living, how to operate a business of ones own and how to keep a community healthy by learning about food and medicine. That community spends in other parts of the community.

Ohoka Farmers Market unlike many others is a real country market. Our customers are both rural and city based, young and old and politically diverse. Most of our stallholders are based within Waimakariri or very close in neighbouring regions. It is a weekly place of diversity, joy, discovery, inspiration and overall a meeting place for people of all kinds. But most importantly it is a source of the best quality foods grown and crafts made by people you can trust.

Thank you

Of course without you, the supporters of the market there would be no market. So congratulations to our thousands of supporters over the years from our Friends of the market, to regular customers to all our visitors from afar.  You are all making a difference every time time you choose to buy from your local growers and food artisans at the market on Friday morning. We really do thank you for your continued support.  

Some tips on how to be a good localist:

Your aim is not to consume, but shop wisely and do it better. Hit pause, shake off the consumer label and question that sense of entitlement consumerism has fooled you in to believing was yours. If you have never been on the other side of the counter consider for a moment what you might look like from that side.

Be regular at the farmers market - your stallholder needs you to be a regular spending customer. Sometimes you personally are the reason they are there!

Cut back on your addiction at the Supermarket: only shop once a week then start reducing that shop too.

Shop at the local food artisans independent businesses: Stop buying these things from your Supermarket: bread, cheese, veges, fruit, meat, fish, booze, soaps and whatever else you can get elsewhere. It may be more expensive or maybe not, but what else do you not buy that you normally would buy if you shopped at the supermarket?

Eat more plants, they are good for your health. The longer the list of ingredients the less likely it is made with plants.

Grow a garden. Avoid the use of herbicides ,fungacide’s and insecticides.

Walk more, get physical, or bike more and drive less if you can, because its better for you and not just the hype about the planet. (Note the private jets arriving at your airport)

Use cash as often as you can, and make it a big deal for others if they refuse it, maybe spend elsewhere.

Organise your life so your livelihood is just part of it and not the entire thing. This might take time, but it’s usually worth the effort.

Let food by thy medicine. Seek out alternative and nutritionally wise medical practitioners in your region in all disciplines.

Get off the internet more often. Restrict your time on it. Avoid Facebook completely. Don’t watch main stream TV and expect to find the truth on anything. Did you know NZ and the USA are the only countries in the entire world that allow pharma advertising?

Read books, buy books, keep books, paper is good like the hand written word.

Love your children, they are your’s.

Open your mind and keep it open.

Beyond the market…

Since 2016 to 2021 we have gifted 40kg of apples and plums from our market growers, to a low decile school in the area every fortnight seasonally. In 2018 we started a Fruits for Schools Campaign. The purpose was to share our locally grown fresh produce with a designated school on a seasonal basis and proceeds from the surcharge on our EFTPOS enable us to do this on a seasonal basis. Thank you for your help in enabling the market to do this.

The $2 surcharge now goes towards prizes awarded to stallholders and customers by way of vouchers at The Good Friday Great Cake Competition and our annual Christmas Hampers prize which has been operating for over a decade.

As the local banking system is affected by global banking trends which currently push for a cashless society, and more of a reliance or dependence upon a centralised banking system we suggest you keep using cash as much as possible and whenever possible. The more you use it the more others have to.

The market has also supported local Charity Jams, Westpac Air Rescue, the Cust Volunteer Fireservice, NZ Cancer Society, SAFE,  and numerous other charitable groups in the region who are compatible with our local food objectives.     

We also ask everyone who supports the market to refrain from using the market to promote yourself, or anything you think or decide needs promoting. Please do not use it as a place of protest or awareness of and for their own or for others political, social, personal objectives. We are an inclusive community event but our objective is to simply provide access to good quality food every Friday morning. Help us keep it simple.