Produce the Calendar for your area

We have produced a printed version of this calendar to make shopping seasonally easier, with promotional adverts for local businesses that sell locally sourced, seasonal food. We have made the template available to other groups hoping to make it easier to re-produce the calendar for their local area, promoting local suppliers/producers.

One reason for suggesting this, is that small growers that provide locally grown vegetables and fruit need our support to survive. Growing vegetables is not hugely profitable. Prices have to be kept as low as possible to compete with the large supermarkets, who buy in bulk from large scale farmers and have the power over the price setting. This distorts the market and makes it very hard for small growers. Recent poor growing seasons have meant that small scale growers are finding times hard. Many box schemes are either run directly by small scale producers or through a network of small scale producers in a local area. With the current 'credit crunch', box schemes and small scale growers are finding their customer base shrinking, even though often the price of the vegetables they sell is less than that of the large supermarkets. They lack the vast marketing budgets of large supermarket chains who bombard our television screens with adverts about how cheap their food is.

The wider environmental impact of food purchased through supermarkets is not reflected in its price, as fruit and vegetables are hauled up and down the UK, or across Europe and flown in from afar. In contrast, the food provided by local producers has travelled less distance from the field to our plates, meaning that it is fresher and has a lower environmental impact.

For future food security, and to cut our carbon footprint, we need more local producers, so it's vital that we support those that we have in the present economic climate. Re-producing this calendar in your locality is one way of promoting producers and suppliers of locally sourced seasonal food.