There’s a great big courtyard in the St Margaret’s development on Bourke Street, Surry Hills. It’s occasionally hosted art launches and graduate architecture shows, but there’s a new sign on the wall announcing an application to hold a weekly farmers’ market. The DA says it would be every Saturday from 8am ’til 1pm (set up at 7am and pack down at 2pm), initially with 30 stalls.

It’s great supporting urban agriculture, and I doubt anyone would complain about having access to good, fresh food that’s been grown in the Sydney basin. But how many farmers actually take part in these markets every weekend – is there really enough farming to support yet another?

There are 1050 vegetable farms left in the Sydney basin (according to a NSW Government and Horticulture Australia quoted in the SMH), which is just over half the usual quoted figure of 2000. And the report says it’s falling fast, with current development plans likely to further halve the vegetable growing land over the next 20 years.

That suggests big long term challenges for Sydney in just feeding itself. But in the short term, there are less and less farms, but more farmers’ markets – and it’s a pretty huge time commitment for farmers to drive in from western Sydney, with seven hours from set up to pack down. With the Fitzroy Gardens farmers’ market going strong in Potts Point, do we need another farmers’ market in the neighbourhood?