Consumer demand is changing the U.S. food industry and local economies can take advantage of consumer demand for less processed fresh and local foods. A National Good Food Network webinar last week highlighted some ways to grow the local economy. Rather than simply...
In the past six months, the Maryland Sustainable Growth Commission’s Rural Economies Workgroup has been exploring how Maryland can advance a wide variety of rural business ventures. On June 4th, the focus was on food production, aggregation and distribution. The...
Many of us were surprised that the growth in the number of farmers markets was appearing to flatten out in the U.S. And in its report to Congress, the USDA reported that between 2007 and 2012 the number of farms with direct-to-consumer sales increased 5.5 percent, but...
I LOVE bread. I am not very good in the kitchen, but years ago, I had grown weary of store-bought bread with a list of chemicals I did not recognize and I resolved to make my own. For a number of years (I won’t say how many), I tortured the family with my...
Recently, you may have seen a number of posts from me about food hubs and the growth potential for local farm-to-table farmers. I guess that others have the same thought in mind. At the Future Harvest CASA conference last week, there was standing-room only for a...
