ASAP began piloting the Double SNAP program in 2019 at the Asheville City Market and has since expanded to eight farmers markets across three counties. This report is based on a survey of farmers market managers, vendors, and customer networks at markets that participated in the Double SNAP program in order to assess impact and … Read more
This is a short summary report describing the themes and impact of ASAP’s Growing Local Radio. This was a radio series developed to engage individuals more deeply with the region’s advancing local food system. It was designed to use storytelling to increase the audience’s awareness of what was happening regionally around local farms and local … Read more
This paper discusses the findings of research conducted by ASAP’s Local Food Research Center with entrepreneurs of local food in Appalachian Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. The research investigated the experiences of local food entrepreneurs to understand their motivations for working with local foods, the challenges they experienced, and the strategies they used … Read more
This report discusses the findings of research conducted by ASAP’s Local Food Research Center, which investigated the impact of place-based food and farm experiences on participants in a local food system building effort in Western North Carolina. The research focused on experiences at farmers markets and on farm tours. As organizers deeply involved in this … Read more
In ASAP’s mission to support Southern Appalachian farms and build a local food system, we developed the Appalachian Grown (AG) branding program in 2007 with the goal of expanding local market opportunities for farmers by providing a way for the public to easily identify products from local farms. We send a survey to all AG … Read more
In ASAP’s mission to support Southern Appalachian farms and build a local food system, we developed the Appalachian Grown (AG) branding program in 2007 with the goal of expanding local market opportunities for farmers by providing a way for the public to easily identify products from local farms. We send a survey to all AG … Read more
In ASAP’s mission to support Southern Appalachian farms and build a local food system, we developed the Appalachian Grown (AG) branding program in 2007 with the goal of expanding local market opportunities for farmers by providing a way for the public to easily identify products from local farms. We send a survey to all AG … Read more
This report presents the findings from an analysis of primary data from the Local Food Guide exploring changes in the growing practices of farmers producing food for local markets in Western North Carolina from 2008 to 2016. Overall, the findings show that every production practice listed in the Guide grew but with notable differences between … Read more
In ASAP’s mission to support Southern Appalachian farms and build a local food system, we developed the Appalachian Grown (AG) branding program in 2007 with the goal of expanding local market opportunities for farmers by providing a way for the public to easily identify products from local farms. We send a survey to all AG … Read more
This report presents the findings of an analysis of Census of Agriculture data to assess changes that occurred to food and farms in Western North Carolina (WNC) in relation to the “tobacco buyout” and to an effort to build a more localized food and farming economy. In WNC, the mid-1990s marked the beginning of a … Read more