When choosing a university to study the pivotal years of your life everybody looks at graduate jobs, research facilities, sports facilities and student satisfaction. Does anyone look at the availability of local produce? Why do we take note of how far the local Tesco is and not how often the local farmers’ market is?

Anyone coming to study at the University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, will find that they have a student-run farmers’ market on their doorstep. The first Wednesday of every month during term time the market is open to both students and the public. Having started in May 2011 with only a few stalls the market has now grown to about 30 stalls, displaying a variety of local meats, desserts, cheeses, and freshly picked fruit and veg.

Located where we are, in the middle of nowhere, it is difficult to get into town to do a food shop without a car. But why go into town to do your shopping when there is so much fresh produce in the local area? Our farmers’ market brings local fresh produce to people that either don’t have access to it or don’t experiment with it as much.

When I started at Nottingham University, there was no farmers’ market. The main product I had trouble getting hold of was my fresh fruit and veg. Even if I had a chance to go to the supermarket the salad would go off after two days. How can we promote fruit and veg consumption when we can’t even get hold of it? For this reason I believe that there should be a farmers’ market at every university. Not only will it promote healthy eating but it will also provide young people with an introduction to the agricultural world.

Nowadays we keep mentioning how much food waste there is. One of the main reasons for this is that most of us don’t understand basic principles of farming; the journey from field to fork. Farmers’ markets play a pivotal role in educating and inspiring people to engage with their food. Many students here now understand what is in season, what’s local and what’s fresh.

Often there are many vegetables that are in season but we have no idea what to do with them. At our spring fair in May last year, we invited a chef to do cooking demonstrations. He was able to show students what to do with lots of different vegetables. For example, he used beetroot to make a quick and easy meal. This went down particularly well with the audience, as for many young people today, cooking a meal from scratch using fresh produce is not necessarily something we are used to doing.

Our work at Sutton Bonington Farmers’ Market won us the BBC Food and Farming Award for best market. We are thrilled about this and hope to inspire other universities to run similar markets.—