In 2015, ASAP contracted with the Appalachian Regional Commission to conduct food and farm assessments for the 420 counties in the ARC geographic area. The purpose of these assessments was to baseline local food and farm activity within the region. The project identified relevant food system indicators and developed a “snapshot” methodology to provide communities with a starting … Read more
With funding from a multi-year Large Systems grant from Southern SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education), this project is looking at how and why local food system development can be a means of creating food system change in Western North Carolina and the Southern Appalachians. The project is guided by a theoretical framework that draws from … Read more
With funding from a Sustainable Community Innovation Grant (SCIG) from Southern SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education) and the Southern Rural Development Center, we are currently examining the impact of farmer-consumer interactions on production practices. More specifically, we are studying the effect of personal(izing) market relationships on the practices that farmers are using to produce food … Read more