Every year since the Appalachian Grown program was founded, a survey has been sent to participating farms to assess the impact of services and gather feedback to shape the program’s direction. In November 2022, this survey was sent to 887 Appalachian Grown producers. We asked about experiences farming in 2022, with a new emphasis on … Read more
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 gather feedback on the program. In 2022, this program doubled $124,325 SNAP dollars, directly supporting 80 family farms and small food businesses and nearly 1,000 … Read more
Every five years, the USDA conducts a Census of Agriculture and releases the most comprehensive and consistent source of data available regarding farm businesses, farmland, and farmers, down to the county level. This report presents findings from an analysis of Census of Agriculture data, exploring changes in food and farming in WNC and the region’s … Read more
ASAP’s Local Food Guide is the definitive resource for finding local food and farms in the Southern Appalachians. The online Local Food Guide at appalachiangrown.org includes 1,400 listings, from farms to businesses that source local foods, and is updated throughout the year. These infographics describe characteristics of farms and partner businesses in the 2022 Local Food Guide.
An annual survey is sent to Appalachian Grown partners to collect information on purchasing patterns of buying local food from farmers. These partners include restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, wholesale distributors, grocery stores, and other businesses that purchase local foods directly from farmers in the Appalachian Grown region. This infographic highlights findings from the survey.
Every year since the Appalachian Grown program was founded, a survey has been sent to participating farms to assess the impact of services and gather feedback to shape the program’s direction. In December 2021, this survey was sent to 760 Appalachian Grown certified producers. We asked about their experiences farming in 2021, including the impact … Read more
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 impact of place-based food and farm experiences, informed by ASAP’s perspective that local food system building can be a catalyst of food system change. The transformative potential of local food lies in its capacity to engage people with food and farming in ways that activate a desire to be active food … Read more