USDA Directory Records More Than 7,800 Farmers Markets |
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| WASHINGTON, Aug. 3, 2012 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced a 9.6 percent increase in National Farmers Market Directory listings as the kickoff to National Farmer’s Market Week. The U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s directory, a database published online at farmersmarkets.usda.gov, identifies 7,864 farmers markets operating throughout the United States. The information collected in the directory is self-reported data provided voluntarily by farmers market managers through an annual outreach effort. Last year, USDA’s directory listed 7,175 markets.
“Farmers markets are a critical ingredient to our nation’s food system,” said Merrigan. “These outlets provide benefits not only to the farmers looking for important income opportunities, but also to the communities looking for fresh, healthy foods. The directory is an online tool that helps connect farmers and consumers, communities and businesses around the country.” The top states, in terms of the number of markets reported in the directory, include California (827 markets), New York (647 markets), Massachusetts (313 markets), Michigan (311 markets), Wisconsin (298 markets), Illinois (292 markets), Ohio (264 markets), Pennsylvania (254 markets), Virginia and Iowa (tied with 227 markets) and North Carolina (202 markets). Together they account for nearly half (49 percent) of the farmers markets listed in the 2012 directory. Geographic regions like the mid-Atlantic (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia), the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont), and the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) saw large increases in their listings, reporting, 15.8, 14.4 and 13.1 percent more markets, respectively. USDA has taken several steps to help small and mid-sized farmers as part of the department’s commitment to support local and regional food systems, and increase consumer access to fresh, healthy food in communities across the country. For example,
Many markets will host fun activities to celebrate National Farmers Market Week including pie contests, festivals, cooking demonstrations, events for kids, raffle drawings and giveaways. USDA officials will visit markets around the country between Aug. 5 and Aug. 11, to honor growers and commemorate National Farmers Market Week. The USDA National Farmers Market Directory is available at farmersmarkets.usda.gov. Users can search for markets based on location, available products, and types of payment accepted, including participation in federal nutrition programs. Directory features allow users to locate markets based on proximity to zip code, mapping directions and links to active farmers market websites. Customized datasets can also be created and exported for use by researchers and software application designers. # |
Category Archives: Local Businesses
Valley Green Feast delivers fresh food to low-income people
By Scott Merzbach
Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette; May 22, 2012
HADLEY – Inside a small barn at the Kitchen Garden Farm on Rocky Hill Road four women have formed an assembly line to pack cardboard boxes and plastic containers with groceries, everything from potatoes and salad greens to breads and meats, all purchased from area farms and bakeries.
Every Friday morning, throughout the cold of winter and the heat of summer, they prepare orders of locally grown, organic food that they will load in four vehicles for delivery to 300 households in the Pioneer Valley and northern Connecticut.
This worker-owned cooperative, known as Valley Green Feast [1], has been around for five years. But its current owners and employees, Rebekah Hanlon, Molly Merrett, Maggie Shar and Bekki Szlosek, are widening its reach, trying to get fresh food to low-income people and city dwellers, too. They are doing that by giving discounts to qualified people and tapping into the Holyoke YMCA for new customers.
“Our mission is to get the produce out to the people,” said Hanlon, the cooperative’s marketing manager. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for people to access the food systems around here.”
The number of weekly farmers markets has grown exponentially in this area, along with Community Supported Agriculture operations where members can purchase shares and make weekly pickups.
But there is still a need to improve nutrition among low-income families and promote the vitality of local farms, Hanlon said.
To make access to their food easier for people of limited means, Valley Green Feast began accepting EBT/SNAP – the federal food assistance program – this year. Those who are eligible receive a 20 percent discount on their fruits and vegetables.
Unlike many of the farmers markets that accept EBT/SNAP payments, though, Valley Green Feast is not depending on federal or state grants to reimburse it for the discount. Instead, it is reducing its own profits.
“It already feels right. It doesn’t feel like we’re stretching ourselves doing this,” Hanlon said.
“We’re making available things that are not necessarily available to them,” said Shar.
John Gerber, a professor at the Stockbridge School at UMass who teaches a course in sustainable living, praised the women’s willingness to focus on low-income customers without relying on government subsidies. “They are truly committed to helping limited-income families have access to fresh, healthy and local food,” he said. “This is truly a unique business and these are truly remarkable young women.”
A cooperative forms
Valley Green Feast was started in 2007 by Jessica Harwood as a one-woman farm food delivery service in Northampton, and it was based there until it moved to Hadley last year. The service had about 25 customers in Hampshire and Franklin counties.
When Harwood decided to move on, she found Merrett, 30, a co-owner and employee of the Pedal People Cooperative hauling service in Northampton, and Shar, 30, program coordinator for Fertile Ground, a Williamsburg-based teaching garden project for area schools. Both women were interested in continuing the business as a worker-owned cooperative, and by January 2010 they had worked out a transition plan. That summer they hired Hanlon, 24, the youth and family coordinator for the Greater Holyoke YMCA. Szlosek, 29, a personal chef, was the last to come on board, joining the group in January.
Their headquarters is the barn that owners of the Kitchen Garden Farm, Caroline Pam and Tim Wilcox, allow them to use on Fridays.
The women do most of the Valley Green Feast work themselves, though volunteers periodically help out. All four use their second jobs to promote Valley Green Feast through word-of-mouth. In addition, Merrett’s Pedal People Cooperative makes deliveries for Valley Green Feast in Northampton using its cargo bicycles.
“We consider ourselves a mobile farmers market,” Szlosek said.
Veggies to beef
By each Tuesday, customers have placed their orders via Valley Green Feast’s website, www.valleygreenfeast.com [2], ordering seasonal fruits and vegetables in containers that range from a mini box for $18 to a gathering box for $55. Customers pay a $4 delivery charge for standing orders and a $7 delivery charge for one-time orders.
The women collect the information in a database overseen by Shar. Merrett then places the orders at farms and other outlets which she has identified as using healthy food production methods, such as growing fruit without pesticides.
“We try and do local and seasonal as much as possible,” Hanlon said.
Customers can also request items like beef and pork from King Creek in Ware, beef from River Rock in Brimfield, poultry from Diemand Farm in Wendell and fish from Port Clyde, a Maine seafood cooperative. The women keep supplies of these foods in a freezer in the barn.
This month selections include salad mix from Red Fire Farm in Granby and Montague; cherry tomatoes from Enterprise Farm, which runs a regional food shed in Whately; cupcakes and breads from Woodstar Bakery in Northampton; corn meal from Four Star Farm in Northfield; yogurt from Side Hill Farm in Ashfield; and fresh bake-at-home pizza from Hillside Pizza in Hadley.
Merrett also includes recipes in a weekly newsletter she distributes to encourage people to use all of the produce in their orders.
Once the vehicles are loaded, the women head out. Merrett takes off for Northampton, where she coordinates the Pedal People deliveries, and the other three women divide up the remaining routes. One car goes north into Franklin County, another to Hilltowns and the third to the southern region. One of the newest drop-off points is the YMCA in Holyoke.
Hanlon has worked with YMCA associate executive director Jennifer Gilburg to establish the Valley Green Feast drop-off point at the Y building. As part of the arrangement, customers don’t have to pay the usual delivery fee.
The Y, which serves Holyoke, Granby and South Hadley, has promoted the effort through its healthy living initiative. “This really fits in with our goals at the Y,” Gilburg said.
So far, about 15 families have received deliveries there.
“The reaction has been very positive,” said Gilburg, who also has her own standing order.
Valley Green Feast has become part of the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives, an organization that focuses on building partnerships between cooperatives. VAWC members include the Pedal People, Collective Copies, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaics, which promotes solar and hydropower, and website design firm Gaia Host Collective.
Adam Trott, staff developer for VAWC, is one of Valley Green Feast’s subscribers.
“I feel as a customer that you have a set of experts doing your shopping for you,” he said.
Valley Green Feast is beginning to work with traditional farmers markets as well. It was recently asked to bring a selection of meats and cheeses to the Holyoke Farmers Market each week.
“It’s an honor to be asked to be part of it,” Szlosek said.
“Our work is empowering, inspiring and nourishing, just like the food that we deliver,” Merrett said.
Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011 All rights reserved
And for a follow-up Editorial in the Amherst Bulletin, see: Mission Possible – Produce to the People
The Meadow Street Farm and Craft Market (at the big blue barn)
In North Amherst Massachusetts there is a small, community market where people come together to buy local food and crafts, and meet their friends and neighbors. Please be sure to stop by the Meadow Street Market on:
- Saturday 9:00am – 2:00pm
- Tuesday 3:30pm – 7:30pm
- Friday 3:00pm – 7:30pm
This is a fun market to visit and a safe place to bring the kids!
Bread delivered by bicycle!
Buy your local milk and eggs
Clothing and crafts
Check out the video introducing some of the vendors:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKU9X8U9y_8&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Please help us spread the word about this wonderful market by “liking” the market on Facebook. Thanks…..
Meet your neighbors at the Amherst Farmers Market
The Amherst Far
mers Market is open from 7:30am to 1:30pm on Saturday mornings from May to November. ———————————————– Join us in downtown Amherst to meet your neighbors, pick up plants for your garden and food for your table.
View this 3 minute video to see what’s happening downtown on Saturday mornings!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOwgqG31M4M&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
And don’t forget to “like” the market here: Amherst Farmers Market
Why do I work for a collective?
Rebekah Hanlon, former UMass student and currently a c0-owner of Valley Green Feast spoke to the UMass Sustainable Living class at UMass on cooperatively managed businesses.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK5h6jRJ-f0&list=PLB65FD9359402D147&index=10&feature=plpp_video[/youtube]
For more information on creating a cooperatively managed business, go to the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives.
Bug Hill Farm and Winter Moon Farm at the Amherst Winter Farmers Market
Please stop by the Amherst Winter Market on Saturday mornings from 10:00am to 2:00pm at the Amherst Middle School within walking distance of UMass. Local crafts and great food.
Stop by for coffee and a conversation with your neighbors and friends.
Two of the vendors are presented here:
- Bug Hill Farm
- Winter Moon Farm
- ….and many more!
I hope to see you there!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8BJUyBIOWU&feature=related[/youtube]
The Amherst Winter Market features a diversity of local products
If you have not yet visited the Amherst Winter Market on Saturday mornings at the Amherst Middle School, you are missing out on a wonderful community meeting place. Lots of vendors of local food and crafts. Good coffee and baked goods, a place to sit and chat with your neighbors on a cold, wintry morning, and a play area for young children. Please join us between 10:00am and 2:00pm (although the fresh eggs usually sell out by 11:00am).
To meet Angie with Mother Herb Diaper Service , Bobbie with Bobbie’s Beebalms, and Stella with Stillmans at the Turkey Farm local meat, see:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_xlnesOpnE&list=PL6481B31CBFE0D936&index=4&feature=plpp_video[/youtube]
Sarah Berquist: Creating ‘Good Work’ at a Young Age
“ We couldn’t have done it without you!” resounded in Amherst Chinese Restaurant from the farmers in the Saturday Amherst Farmer’s Market. It was the end of the market dinner for the Amherst Farmer’s Market family, a group of dedicated farmers and volunteers linked by the market manager Sarah Berquist, to provide local goods to the community of Amherst.
Saturday Amherst Farmer's Market
Sarah Berquist is a recent graduate from Umass Amherst and the Sustainable Food and Farming concentration, but has since continued new learning opportunities into our larger Pioneer Valley Community. Entering into school as an Environmental Science major, Sarah realized she thrived while working with her hands. After switching to Sustainable Food andarming, Sarah immediately got the hands- on experience she was looking for at Astarte Farm, securing her passion and interest for agriculture. Sarah is always exploring challenging opportunities and looking to provide her friends and family with healthy food choices.
Sarah and Professor John Gerber of the UMass Sustainable Food and Farming Program
Most recently, Sarah was the Teachers Assistant and researcher for the Student Farm as well as The Saturday Amherst Farmer’s Market Manager. Sarah was an integral part in ensuring that the Farmer’s Market exceeded the expectations of the community in providing an accessible outlet for healthy food to our community. Sarah woke up at 5:30 every morning with the farm vendors, always conscious of connecting the market to the wider community. Personally as a volunteer, by the time I came to the market, Sarah was wide awake conversing with patrons and vendors, dealing with market logistics, and checking in with everyone’s needs, with a friendly and concerned attitude.
Sarah and intern Andrea Colbert working the SNAP/EBT machine
Going beyond the conventional market structure, Sarah searched for opportunities to make the market more widely accessible to a broader socio-economic base. Driven by her frustration with the lack of accessible locally made products, she pursued a grant that would increase the markets availability to a variety of economic statuses. The grant allowed individuals receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) benefits incentives to buy from the farmer’s market. The Electronic Benefits Transfer machine matched the amount of money the person would receive from their SNAP benefits(If the card was charged $10 the customer would receive $20). Sarah wants to address the affordability of healthy options for the Amherst community and the environment.Sarah has responded to the communities demand for products that benefit the entire community by extending the accessibility and incentives to frequent the market. The SNAP/EBT machine is great for any customer who forgets cash for the market, but most importantly diversifies the economic base for those who wish to benefit from the great food that their neighbor farmer’s provide. It is all part of a closed loop system of relationships and resources that helps the community thrive. Inspirational, dedicated, young individuals like Sarah are integral to a community that must develop cooperation and resilience in the face of uncertainty with our resources.
Sarah has experienced the importance of reaching beyond the classroom walls to apply her knowledge and accept the learning opportunities from trying. During her time at Umass Amherst, Sarah created a home for herself in the Valley away from her home of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sarah immersed herself in a community where she feels at home, while she continues to push herself to improve the community she loves. In the time I have known Sarah she has inspired me as an undergraduate and her other friends at the university to experience and engage in the community for the happiness of everyone. Sarah has created a close network of people while working in agriculture, including Sunset Farm,The Umass Student Farming Enterprise, Umass Ethnic Crops Program and Winter Moon Farm. There are no limitations in her interests to explore and only furthers her diverse contribution to the Pioneer Valley. Hosting regular potlucks with friends, playing music and speaking Spanish accompany her talents in producing, educating, researching and marketing sustainable agriculture. With intentions of returning to the place and people she learned from, Sarah is beginning a new adventure to Costa Rica where she will travel and learn farming techniques to return home with.
Sarah is a great friend to many, who made me a part of the market family, even as an occasional volunteer. Volunteering at the SNAP machine for me was a time to hang out with great friends and learn new things about a town I spend a majority of my time in during the year. Sarah taught me the importance of integrating oneself into a community that will help me grow and give back to my community that has given me knowledge and support in a place away from home.
By: Sara Hopps
Draft Horse Power at Amethyst Farm
Bernard Brennan
Amethyst Farm was started over a century ago by settlers who wanted to farm in the fertile valley that has become the progressive town of Amherst, Massachusetts. It has always been a family farm, changing hands over the generations, while maintaining the charming qualities of a rural homestead. The property has offered its residents the resources to establish a quality of life that produces self-sufficient results, with a horse-boarding business and an indoor equestrian arena that pays the bills, while an extensive acreage of hayfields lays the bedding to comfort both the two-legged and four-legged residents. This land has provided the good life to many generations of Amherst agriculturists.
Now, a new generation of sustainable-minded farmers has moved into the old farmhouse, with goals of returning to a simpler way of living.
Bernard Brennan and his wife and children moved to Amherst from Connecticut last year, with plans of revitalizing the old farm and making it produce more than just shelter for purebred show horses. The Brennans want to construct a local economy using Amethyst farm as a community center for the families of Amherst seeking more than the intellectual rigors of academia. Coming from Yale where he was a Professor of Behavioral Ecology, Bernard wants to put the horses to work and reclaim the land. He sees this stretch of open pasture and small woodlot as an investment for his children’s generation, and his goal is to correct the incongruities caused by the elder generations whose cultural norms have led to peak oil concerns and social disparities that threaten future generations enjoyment of natural habitats.
Making Hay in May 2012
When he bought the 120 acre property, Bernard had never worked with horses before, although he did extensive research on the behavioral patterns of wasp species, that led him to appreciate the diverse mysteries of animals and their relationship with humans. When he came to Amethyst Farm, he decided that draft horses would be a key element to creating an alternative lifestyle that answered the problems of our dependence on fossil fuel. Horses have played a significant role in the founding of this country, and Bernard plans to reform this relationship with his own two hands on the reins. He bought two beautiful gray Percheron geldings which he harnessed up and hitched to a fleet of horsedrawn equipment that would otherwise be pulled by antique tractors. Pioneer welding is a company that produces modern farming implements for draft animal power, and Bernard has used his equipment budget wisely in purchasing quality-built equipment that will work the land without dependence on gasoline or diesel tractors. Last year, he plowed his garden beds with the team of Percherons and planted his family’s vegetable garden in that horse-tilled plot. Instead of planting the ordinary broccoli and carrots, he plans to grow crops that will feed his family in a holistic way. His first crop of rice was successful, and he plans to grow nut trees and shrubs along a one hundred foot long hedge row which will develop into a self-maintaining edible forest garden.
This winter, Bernard plans to drive the horses into the twenty acre woodlot and harvest enough firewood to heat the old farmhouse, instead of filling the tank with expensive, imported oil.
An important aspect of the Brennan’s farming enterprise is trading and bartering with their neighbors. They believe that modern citizens of the world have grown away from our neighbors, and that in order to create a healthier world, we must befriend the folks on the other side of the fence, and share the bounties of our harvest. Part of this mission has been the regular monthly potluck dinners that the Brennans have shared with other families and friends in Amherst. They share homemade bread, meats, vegetables, and skills with each other, in hopes of building longlasting relationships that will heal the wounds of our alienating society. Another huge philanthropic contribution that Bernard has made within his short residence in Amherst, has been the provision of land to the newly established Many Hands Farm Corps founded by Ryan Karb, Eric Day, and George Daniel Vest just this past year. All he asks from Many Hands is a share in their organic vegetable CSA and some help from their crew weeding the garden. Bernard hopes to incorporate the Many Hands apprentice program into his draft horse operations within the next few seasons, by offering some training and hands-on experience with the draft horses. This would be a huge contribution to the farm corps that uses tractors on a minimal basis and depends on human labor as the primary source of energy in their growing of high quality fresh local produce.
Bernard shares a philosophy with Blue Star Equiculture founders, Pamela Rickenbach and Paul Moshimer, who believe that this country was built by humans and horses together. Horses pulled the stoneboats that built the iconic stonewalls of New England. Horses pulled the wagons loaded with supplies and equipment that settlers used to establish new towns and societies. We owe horses as much respect and gratitude as our founding fathers and mothers. Without them, we would still be gardening in our backyards with our hands, and we would not even be able to refer to tractors and trucks in measures of horsepower.
When I think of sustainable farming, I don’t think of John Deere and International Harvester. I think of sweating and backbreaking work, and plows pulled by stoic equines. Only when we as humans learn to appreciate our animal friends and take as much care of them as we take of ourselves, will we be on the right course to repairing the damage we’ve done to this world in the last one hundred years – and that’s a pretty short period of time, since we invented machines. Horses have been working with us for six thousand years. It’s time we remember that and follow in their hoof prints.
I want to thank Bernard Brennan for showing me around his barnyard and stables, and for taking on the hard work of reestablishing the great occupation of horsemanship. One farmer and two horses can plow our fields back to the health of pre-European settlement. And I think that is a utopian future to work toward.
Chris Marano and Clearpath Herbals
I find it easy to forget how unsustainable modern medicine can sometimes be. I certainly don’t discredit it for the amazing, lifesaving advances that have enabled it to save so many lives, but there is another side of modern medicine. A side that, I think, in some ways, tricks a healthy person into thinking they are unhealthy. A healthcare system based on profit cannot but fall into the trap of advertising, and the consumerism lifestyle that comes with it. And predictably, our societies consumerist habits have followed into the medical world. However, I have had the pleasure of meeting Chris Marano, a clinical herbalist based in the Pioneer Valley, who inspires me to hope that one day our healthcare system might be able to become more balanced.
Chris has been practicing traditional medicine in his own life for 30 years and bringing it to others for 18. He recognizes that certain aspects of modern medicine are unsustainable, such as the fact that many pills must be synthesized in a lab. If, for whatever reason, labs that produce pills were to lose power or resources, they would be unable to operate. That’s a scary reality, but the fact that we have people like Chris who uphold the tradition of looking to the earth for healing is a saving grace. Chris has much to teach and I recommend that everyone consult with an herbalist at some point in their life. Natural medicine creates a more sustainable circle and I hope that more people will begin to incorporate it into their lifestyles.
Check out Chris’s website at www.clearpathherbals.com.