City slickers do care where their food comes from, says researcher

Mr Fletcher said the portrayal of urban dwellers as disconnected from food production was unjustified and inaccurate.

He was speaking to Stock & Land at the recent Future Ag Expo at the Melbourne Showgrounds.

"People do have a general idea where their food comes from and they absolutely do care," he insisted.

Mr Fletcher had spent years researching consumer sentiment and patterns, concerning agriculture and food.

He presented survey findings that proved urban dwellers were seeking a connection to their food and that there was an opportunity for producers to capitalise.

"People want nutritious food, they want it fresher," he said.

"We've got the supermarkets under the spotlight at the moment and that's just reinforcing that view that there is an issue.

"If we just look back a few years when our milk producers were in trouble, people were prepared to put a donation on top of the milk they purchased to support those producers."

He warned that statements from farmer representatives or farmers themselves that non-farmers did not care or understand their challenges were "absolutely wrong".

"People do care, they're interested and they have a degree of understanding," he said.

Mr Fletcher said this was evidenced by the uptick in consumers buying food through farmers' markets.

"People spent a lot of time during Covid thinking about things," he said.

"One of the things that it encouraged them to do was to shop locally.

"Suddenly they couldn't go so far so they walked down to their local shops and started to reconnect with the people who are doing the work."

He said consumers wished to move away from buying food at a "faceless supermarket".

"I see this whole growth in farmers markets as an extension of that," he said.

Mr Fletcher said people wanted a "community connection" with their food and wanted to know the real people putting in the work to produce it.

"Farmers markets are a brilliant opportunity for that and we see the popularity of them growing," he said.

When asked what farmers needed to do to access farmers' markets and get their produce direct to consumers, rather than via processors, Mr Fletcher had a number of recommendations.

"First thing they need to do is make sure their product will meet the expectations of standards," he said.

"They need to be able to somehow get it to the end consumer where it is fresh and needs to be nutritious.

"It needs to ideally be free of chemicals because people want more and will pay more for organic or at least non-chemically treated."

He said farmers needed to ask themselves if their produce could meet that standard.

"If it does, then I would suggest the easiest thing to do is to get out to farmers markets and start talking to people," he said.

When it came to the most popular food at farmers' markets, Mr Fletcher suggested there were three key elements in the "crown jewel".

He said the food being organic was one of the elements.

"Not too many people are exactly sure what that means but all the research is saying there's a clear overlap of the ideas of organic, natural, good for you, a constellation of things," he said.

The second key element was the food's providence.

"People want to know where the product comes from," he said.

"If you can give that piece of information, they love that."

Mr Fletcher said the third element was consumers wanted to believe the money they were paying actually went to a real person and not to a corporate company.

He said there were examples of where people might have always supported a local producer, such as a small brewery, and then when that brewery was bought by a corporate, the consumer's support stopped.

The agribusiness researcher also highlighted that primary school programmes such as the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation were helping children learn about food and farming.

"There's actually research that they do impact that connection with agriculture," he said.

"Those things are phenomenally successful.

"They make a difference and they expose young people to the idea of a career in agriculture."

Mr Fletcher said the key thing stopping young people was their parents saying agriculture was dangerous, poorly paid and it had long hours.

"It's always going to be long hours but now it's not poorly paid and now it's not necessarily dangerous," he said.

"As soon as those perceptions change, we're going to see a lot more people pursuing agriculture as a career."