ASAP helps create and expand local food markets that will preserve our agricultural heritage, give everyone access to fresh, healthy food, and keep our farmers farming. Our mission is to collaboratively create and expand regional community based and integrated food systems that are locally owned and controlled, environmentally sound, economically viable, and health-promoting.
Search our Local Food Guide. Shop for Appalachian Grown certified products. Get involved in the Growing Minds Farm to School program. Visit a farmers market. Browse our information on workshops, grants, and more. Use our classified section, calendar, and online resources. Whether you're a farmer, consumer, or work with a school, restaurant, or grocer, join us in reconnecting people throughout the region with their food.
Get in the 2010 Guide
If you own a local family farm or a business that uses local farm products, now's the time to register for the Local Food Guide . If you've registered in the past, please update your information for the ninth annual addition. Only new and renewed listings are published each year.Read more.
Farm to Business Directory Focuses on High Country
ASAP is producing a special High Country edition of the Mixing Bowl,
our farm to business directory. Farmers and food service professionals
offering and seeking local, wholesale, farm products are encouraged to
register.
ASAP is relocating. We’re looking for office space in Buncombe County with the following requirements:
• Large enough to contain 13 work stations , plus 2-3 smaller stations.
• A conference room or shared meeting space large enough to seat 15 or so folks.
• A kitchen.
• Parking capacity for 15 daily but occasionally up to 20.
• Preferably within 10-15 minutes of downtown Asheville.
• Prefer a building with character.
Register for Marketing Opportunities for Farmers Conference
Family farmers can succeed in the current economy, with the right knowledge about customers and buyers. To insure farmers have the information they need, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) holds the Marketing Opportunities for Farmers Conference. ASAP’s seventh annual conference will be held on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. Click here to register, and for information on workshop topics, networking opportunities, scholarships, and an invitation to food buyers.
Kid’s Editions of Popular Local Food Guide and Bumper Sticker
In spring 2010, ASAP will launch new kid’s versions of its popular materials: the Local Food Guide and Local Food -Thousands of Miles Fresher bumper sticker. The sticker will be scaled down for a bike, and the kid sized guide will feature special contents and activities. “We want to give kids positive experiences with local food so they’ll form healthy eating habits,” says Emily Jackson of ASAP. “These fun materials—designed just for kids—make good choices appealing.”
Show your support for local food and farmers. Order Appalachian Grown
totes, tee shirts, onesies, mugs, bottle, buttons, and caps from our
new online store.
Have ideas for merchandise you'd like to buy? Let us know.
Money Available for Farmers
ASAP is making matching funds available to farmers through a program funded by the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. Farmers can apply for matching funds that will enable them to conduct promotions and develop materials that identify their products as local. ASAP will offer approximately $50,000 total to Southern Appalachian farmers to help them market and promote local foods.
Each month, ASAP, farmers, chefs, and diners will be celebrating the changing
seasons by focusing as a community on one great locally grown
ingredient. Read more.
