Keep Farmers Farming

I serve on the Board of Directors of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), the organization that produces the Local Food Guide, helped get the Asheville City Market off the ground, and does lots more to promote local food in western NC. If you don't know what ASAP does, you're not alone. Best known as "the people behind that green thousands of miles fresher bumpersticker" or "the people who put out the Local Food Guide," ASAP has been quietly creating and expanding markets for local food all throughout this region. If you live in western North Carolina and you've enjoyed local produce in recent years, you may have ASAP to thank, in addition to your farmers, whether you know it or not! ASAP also does a lot to increase access to local food, including coordinating a farm to school program, Growing Minds.

Danny McConnell, a local farmer who inspires me bigtime, is also an ASAP Board Member. He wrote the letter posted below, an appeal to "keep farmers farming."

I am posting this with deep gratitude for all of those growing food in these parts, and in hope that all of us who care about local food, healthy local economies, and preserving farming as a way of life will support the organizations working hard to create systems to support local food.

Click here to make a donation to ASAP.

Click on the image below to enlarge Danny's letter and read it.