The starting signal for the SAGE Farmers’ Market is also a sign of a resurgent independence from ‘Big Food’, the concentration in just a few corporate hands of our food supply.

In an earlier time, the Eurobodalla was not only proudly self-sufficient in fresh produce, it also sent crops to Sydney, as our pioneer story on the opposite page recounts.

In the 1970s, independent growers and retailers felt the corporate pinch and since then, much of our produce has been trucked in, measured in rising food miles and fuel costs and less say for consumers and growers.

The dairy industry, too, has declined.

However, as Pablo Neruda said, you can kill the flowers but you can’t hold back the springtime.

Springtime has come in the number of people choosing to give market gardening, small-scale livestock production, free-range eggs, local dairy products and honey a go.

It is also seen in the number of shoppers saying, ‘Yes, please’ and making a conscious choice to support local producers.

A mainstay of this movement has been the volunteer organisation, Sustainable Gardening and Agriculture Eurobodalla.

Sprouted as a training ground for gardeners and farmers, to put the skills of growing our own food back in local hands, the group soon realised the dream would not be realised without a dedicated outlet.

Eurobodalla Shire Council swung behind the plan and the SAGE market has punched above its weight since that first bell rang on January 1, 2013.

On Monday it earned an even bigger gong, winning the award for Australia’s best farmers’ market in the ABC delicious Produce Awards.

It did not win because it was the biggest or longest lived.

It is neither.

It won because a determined bunch of volunteers, producers and shoppers are week-in, week-out, are showing it possible, even starting small, to reclaim a critical segment of their economy.

- Kerrie O’Connor