Middle Tennessee Locally Grown:  No Market this Week January 4

GFM :  SPOTLIGHT VENDOR OF THE WEEK

SPOTLIGHT VENDOR OF THE WEEK

“Seeds·2·Substance”

Grown by Jack

• Providing LOCALLY GROWN (east TN) and great tasting:
• Greens
• Lettuces
• Speciality Herbs & Spices
• Microgreens

• VISION – To provide fresh, locally grown produce utilizing sustainable Hydroponics & Aquaponics aqua farming technologies

• Aquaculture, the growing of fish, and
• Hydroponics, the growing of plants in water.
• Fish waste is filtered and natural bacteria turn it into a usable fertilizer for the plants.
• Plants then uptake that fertilizer and clean the water for the fish.
• This cycle repeats, creating a recirculating system where fish and plants thrive together.

Seeds·2·Substance is currently:

• Utilizing a 1,500 sq ft climate controlled greenhouse.
• Producing approximately 500 units of produce weekly
• Jointly working with ETSU MBA students (Christie Michals, Megan Cutshaw, and Maya Roselius) along with ETSU Professors (Craig Turner and Bill Heise) to understand market demand:
  
  
  
  • Online website www.seeds2substance.com
  • Also selling at gfm.locallygrown.net
  • New Vendor with Greeneville Farmers Market, May to October
  • Customers (e.g., chefs, farmer markets, grocers)
• Product portfolio needs of customers
• Seasonal changes in desired portfolio
• Building additional avenues for Customer to Seeds·2·Substance to meet their year-around needs

Foothills Market:  The Market is Open - January 1

Happy New Year!

We at Foothills Market hope you are having a good beginning to 2018.

The market is open for shopping from now until Thursday at noon. This Thursday is National Spaghetti Day, so you might want to pick up some fresh, locally-grown meat from one of our growers to make your special sauce to celebrate.

The super-cold weather has really cut back on the offerings of fresh vegetables, but it looks like the Food for Thought Garden still has a limited amount of salad mix.

Browse the offerings, fill your cart, and click the “Place your order” button. We’ll have your order ready for pickup Friday afternoon between 4-6 at the Food for Thought Garden house in Clarksville (815 N. Hillcrest).

Thank you for your business, and we hope it’s one of your New Year’s resolutions to eat fresh and local this year!

Siloam Springs, AR:  Happy New Year! Market is Open!

The New Year came in with a cold front and it was 4 degrees at my house this morning. Our neighbor’s water froze. We are thankful ours did not. Keep the water dripping this week.

R Family Farm stocked up the chicken this week so you should stock up too as this is the last of it until spring.

Unfortunately produce isn’t going to grow well with these cold temps so it may be a few weeks before it’s back online.

Best wishes on 2018! See you Saturday!

~Stacy

GFM :  FARMERS MARKET POTLUCK LUNCHEON

All Current Vendors, Farmers, Direct Sales, Artisans, Crafters, Food Trucks, and Anyone interested in becoming a VENDOR or just finding out more about the Events, we offer during season, or more about the market in general such as our FRE$H SAVINGS/SNAP PROGRAMS you are invited to attend this Potluck Luncheon.

 Anyone interested in learning more about our online market and how to sell year-round is also invited. (you do not have to be a regular vendor to sell with our online market, however we would welcome you to join us)

 Please Bring a Dish to Share. GFM will provide silverware, coffee, tea, and paper products.

Please RSVP to Judy @ 423-552-3023 by January 12, if planning to attending (I need a count in order to provide enough drinks and Paper products) or to ask questions. Please also, if you have not already contacted me, please do so and let me know what you will be bringing to share.

 When:Sun Jan 14, 2018 starting at 1:30pm – 3pm Eastern Time

 Where:All Creatures Country Club Training Center , 345 Kitchen Branch Rd, Greeneville, TN 37743, USA (map)

Sincerely,

Judy Shelton/CEO

Winnsboro, TX:  Welcome to 2018 - Market is Open

Start the year out on the right foot by shopping fresh and local. The online market is now open and chicken feet and backs and bones are available for making bone broth.

Embry Family Farm has turnips, lettuces, radishes, arugula, and kale available. This is subject to the weather so we will let you know before pickup if it made it through the freezing temperatures.

Due to the cold temperatures the pickup place will be inside the Depot on Main and Broadway.

Thank you and happy shopping. Store closes at 7 pm tomorrow night.

Debra Aaron
903.629.3332
312.307.0114 (mobile)

Athens Locally Grown:  ALG Market Open for January 4

Welcome to 2018, and another year of Athens Locally Grown! This will be our seventeenth year in operation (I had to double check to make sure I had that right) and we are looking forward to many more. Many of our growers are have slowed down for the winter, delivering every other week or otherwise reducing their availability. Many others, however, are still going strong thanks to greenhouses and other season-extending methods. We’ll be going every single week from now until our next week off — Thanksgiving.

I saved a link to an essay I ran across last year that wonderfully illustrates why I run ALG, and why I started my own little vegetable farm back in 2002. It uses the simple dish that’s traditionally served on New Year’s Day, Hoppin’ John, to show how much our food supply has changed in the last several decades, and how much flavor, nutrition, and diversity we nearly lost forever along the way. Small farms like those who sell through ALG, with the support of people like you who are wanting locally grown, fresh, flavorful foods, have started to turn the tide and have just barely managed to keep some of the old foods around. Many people eat Hoppin’ John and wonder why the bland mix of mushy beans and rice became a tradition and the truth is that’s not what became a tradition, it’s just what we were stuck with when the food system changed around us. Have a read of the full article — I think you’ll enjoy it: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/12/southern-hoppin-john-new-years-tradition.html.

Each January, I devote the first few mailings of the year to the behind the scenes operation of ALG. This week, I’m going to talk about the many legal issues surrounding our market. Even though many people call us “the co-op”, ALG is legally a market owned and operated by me, so I can have a place to sell items I occasionally offer from my own gardens. There’s no board of directors, no shield corporation, no pot of grant money. It’s just me, and while that keeps things very simple, it also exposes me and my family to a ton of potential liability. It’s never really been an issue (except when the whole raw milk thing erupted several years ago) and there are several things I do specifically to minimize that risk:

• The growers list their own items and set their own prices. When you buy from them, it is from them, not from me, and not from Athens Locally Grown.
• Athens Locally Grown never takes ownership or possession of the food. The growers drop it off, and you pick it up.
• Everything at the market has a customer’s name attached to it when it arrives. ALG does not repackage any items, or buy in bulk for redistribution.
• When you pay, you’re paying into a shared cash box for all of the growers. This lets you write a single check or swipe your card once for convenience, but you are really paying all of the growers directly and individually. Your money goes in, and the software I wrote to keep everything going spits out checks for each of the growers you buy from.
• The growers give a small percentage of their sales, generally 10%, back to the market to cover the many expenses of keeping the market going. I’ll cover the details of finances another week.
• ALG never buys from a grower and resells the items to you. Never.
• When a grower sells items that need licenses from either the state or the federal government, ALG verifies that the proper licenses have been obtained.

The ownership issue is key. It’s one of the reasons why we don’t offer delivery, and why we usually can’t hold items for you if you aren’t able to pick up your orders. Delivery might be a good business for someone (if they could figure out all the legal requirements), but it’s not at all what I personally want to be into. I think it would be a valuable service for you, and I’m hoping someday someone will be able to partner with me for this. Many food co-ops and even some farmers markets aren’t as careful with keeping ownership as straight as I try to be, and that has gotten other groups similar to us into serious legal trouble (deserved or not) over the years. There are so many grey areas in all this, and the written regulations still don’t even consider that something like Athens Locally Grown might exist. We’re so firmly in the grey areas with most everything we do that it’s just too risky for me to bring us into the areas that are clearly black.

So, these are the sorts of things that guide my thinking as Athens Locally Grown has grown over the years. Everything we do has legal ramifications, and the state of Georgia has a reputation for being no nonsense when it comes to enforcement — with the little guy, anyway. That has became extra obvious in recent years, and the FDA is also putting pressure on groups like us too. I’m not a lawyer, but every time we enter those grey areas, I make sure we follow the intent of the laws, don’t flaunt anything, and have a good defense and a paper trail should we need it. And when that doesn’t work, the good folks at the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund are behind us. They have consumer memberships, too, and I do encourage everyone who is able to become a member of the FtCLDF.

The FtCLDF was my legal counsel in the federal lawsuit against the FDA I (and one of our members) was a plaintiff on. The lawsuit was in response to the seizure and destruction of 110 gallons of South Carolina milk purchased by ALG members in October 2009. During the pre-trial phase, the FDA moved to dismiss the suit, and went so far as to claim that the milk dumping, filmed and placed on YouTube, with an FDA agent clearly identified, never happened. The judge refused to dismiss, and gave the FDA six months to give a yes or no answer to whether what we did is really considered illegal. Exactly six months later, they responded that it was illegal, but also claimed that even though an FDA agent was at my house giving direction, they had no hand in the dumping. They also went on record stating that individuals were legally free to cross state lines and buy raw milk to take home with them (something that the FDA agent at my house said, on camera, was completely illegal under all circumstances). After that, the judge dismissed the suit without fully ruling whether ALG was also free to facilitate our members collectively ordering and picking up milk across state lines. In any case, the state of Georgia still says what we were doing was illegal and even tightened the rules right afterward, so raw milk is still rather hard to come by.

And there in a nutshell is the legalities behind ALG. In the following weeks, I’ll get more into the nuts and bolts of finances and other aspects of how we work.

Independence,VA:  Happy New Year!

Good afternoon!

If you’re planning to start 2018 with fresh, local foods, be sure to place your order on the Market by tomorrow night at 8 pm. Orders will be ready to be picked up this Wednesday, January 3rd, at the Grayson Landcare office between 4 and 6 pm.

To Shop: Independence Farmers Market.

Happy New Year!

Abby

CLG:  Opening Bell: Goat Cheeses, Honey, Salad Mix, Broccoli!

Good afternoon!

Happy New Year’s Eve! Good news! We are having market this week. After the busy holiday season, it’s good to look forward to some sense of normalcy in our daily lives. This week you won’t have to ask yourself, “Where’s the Beef?” Does anyone remember the Clara Peller commercials for Wendy’s in the mid 80’s? Ratchford Farms and Grass Roots Co-op have all their items listed again.

Cadron Valley Acres has listed MICROGREENS! Get some for salads or sandwiches.

Mark your calendars: We will not have a market on Friday, January 26th.

I will have some exciting news about a new Grower soon. Stay tuned!

Many varieties of Goat Cheese available now! Try some Gouda or Halloumi.

Be sure to SEARCH for your favorite items using the search field. Over 650 items available now!

Most items are listed by 6pm Sunday, but check back again before the market closes Tuesday night to see if any other items are ready to be harvested for you! Eat fresh! Eat local! Eat for better health!

And save your eggshells throughout the week for the laying hens! :-)

The market is now OPEN for orders. Click here to start shopping:

www.conway.locallygrown.net

Please check your email a few minutes after you place your order to make sure you get an order confirmation. Thank you for being a valuable part of CLG!
Have a great week!
Steve

The Wednesday Market:  Happy New Year! The Market is Open!

Good afternoon.

The Wednesday Market is open for orders. Please place your orders by 10 p.m. Monday. Orders are ready for pick up between 3 and 6 p.m. Wednesday. See the website for this week’s product offerings. Here is the link: https://wednesdaymarket.locallygrown.net/market

We have arrived at the end of another year. Thank you for your support of The Wednesday Market. We send you our best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Thanks,

Beverly