Letter from the Mayor of Flint
The following is a letter from the Mayor. As you will read Flint has been selected as one of the “main street” projects. We are asking for the community to vote for this. Please help by sharing the link with your contacts, on social media and through word of mouth. Together we can make great [...]
Continue Reading →Stanford’s FEED Collaborative: Academics and the Food System Collide
May 23, 2013 | Trish Popovitch Currently, the world’s food system is in a state of flux. Small growers across the globe attempt to impact their local communities by producing organic food that challenges traditional food production. The students of Stanford University’s FEED (Food Education Entrepreneurship Design) Collaborative intend to impact the food system in [...]
Continue Reading →Eco Garden Grows Community While Encouraging Kids to Play in the Dirt
May 22, 2013 | Abbie Stutzer Luke Ebner and Angela Stanbery were fine art majors who also had an eye (and a few green thumbs) for organic gardening. Ebner started working at Permaganic Co.’s Eco Garden, a community garden, educational program and non-profit in Cincinnati, Ohio, part-time in 2003. Stanbery joined him in 2004. While [...]
Continue Reading →Waste Reuse, Health and Nutrient Density Core to Arizona-based Aquaponic Operation
May 20, 2013 | Melonie Magruder  Five years ago Mark Rhine and his business partner Marlo Ibanez, co-owners of Rhibafarms, had a broadband company in Phoenix, Arizona. They fielded a $225,000 a month payroll, traveled constantly and ate junk food only as an afterthought. Then they cashed in their company, bought a farm – [...]
Continue Reading →Chef in Brea, CA Embraces Aquaponics to Supply Restaurants, a Catering Business and Local Markets
May 16, 2013 | Trish Popovitch  Every small grower likes to find ways to reduce costs and cut out the middle man but Adam Navidi of Future Foods Farms and Green to Go has turned organic growing and serving his clientele into a planet friendly fine art. He grows a wide range of organic [...]
Continue Reading →Ron Finley’s Guerilla Gardens Changing the urban landscape one garden at a time
Ron Finley wants everyone to understand “growing your own food is like printing your own money.” The group he founded is LA Green Grounds. Their mission: “Growing, working, teaching: changing turf into edible gardens in South Los Angeles.” After giving a rousing 10-minute TED talk about his urban gardening efforts in last winter, Finley found [...]
Continue Reading →Detroit Urban Farming Enterprise, RecoveryPark, Poised to Revitalize East Side and Create 18,000
May 9, 2013 | Nina Ignaczak  The east side of Detroit, like much of the rest of the city, is in dire need of recovery. The land is dotted with vacant and abandoned homes. The economy is in tatters. Unemployment, infant mortality, poverty, crime, and drug abuse are major challenges facing the dwindling population. [...]
Continue Reading →Urban Agriculture Organizations Hopes to Get All Residents Onboard to Keep Growing Detroit
May 8, 2013 | Nina Ignaczak  Keep Growing Detroit, a nonprofit community gardening and urban agriculture support organization, has a mission to achieve nothing short of sovereignty for Detroiters. Food sovereignty, that is. The organization’s vision is one of a Detroit where Detroiters grow the majority of fruits and vegetables they consume. The group [...]
Continue Reading →Hospital Pledge May Mean New Income Source for Small Farmers
May 6, 2013 | Trish Popovitch  A nationwide initiative to encourage hospitals to provide patients and employees with healthier food choices may benefit independent growers. The Healthy Food in Health Care (HFHC) program encourages hospitals across the country to pledge to a more sustainable food program in their facilities with a focus on buying [...]
Continue Reading →Food Think Tank Takes On Task of Fixing Global Food System
May 2, 2013 | Noelle Swan Nearly 1 billion people around the world are hungry. Another billion people are obese. At the same time, one third of the food produced for human consumption spoils or goes to waste. These problems have become pervasive throughout the globe. They affect industrialized and developing nations alike. Danielle Nierenberg [...]
Continue Reading →Beyond the Numbers: The Lure of the Family Farm
April 30, 2013 | Noelle Swan The family farmer is making a comeback with a starring role in the new American dream. In recent years, the number of individual farms in the United States has increased for the first time since World War II, according to the 2007 Agricultural Census, the most recent data compiled [...]
Continue Reading →Food Field Urban Farm in Detroit Heals Land, Sets Sights On Aquaponics and Economic Viability
April 1, 2013 | Nina Ignaczak Like many neighborhoods in Detroit, Boston-Edison, once home to Henry Ford, has seen better days. Abandoned, burned out structures are interspersed with vacant lots. Although an intact historic district survives, much of the neighborhood suffers from the post-industrial poverty and neglect that plagues much of rest of the city. [...]
Continue Reading →Washington State Food Hub Connects Small Growers to Large Buyers, Satisfying Demand for Local Food
April 25, 2013 | Trish Popovitch  The demand for local food continues to grow, often faster than small growers and infrastructure can keep up. That’s why the work of the Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC) is vital in connecting small farmers to big business in Northwest Washington State. Founded in 2006, NABC is the [...]
Continue Reading →‘Next Urban Chef’ Program Stresses Importance of Local Food to Detroit Youth, Teams Students with Chefs
April 24, 2013 | Nina Ignaczak  “The food system is literally killing people in communities like Detroit,” says Alison Heeres, 27, coordinator of a program designed to educate and engage youth in the local food movement in the City of Detroit. Heeres, who works with the University of Michigan Health System teaching nutrition and [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers markets: Be aware of the rhythm of the season There are still good choices in April, including strawberries, rhubarb and blueberries.
By David Karp April 5, 2013, 11:04 a.m. April is generally the least abundant month for locally grown fruits, with nothing like the profusion of stone fruits in summer, apples in autumn and citrus in winter. But there’s still plenty of great choices at farmers markets, particularly for shoppers alert to the rhythm of seasons [...]
Continue Reading →After $50 Million Buyout, Entrepreneurs Return to Farm to Further Ideals of Sustainable Food Movement
April 17, 2013 | Melonie Magruder  In today’s cyber-driven universe, technology wunderkinds don’t normally go from $50 million buyouts by Google back to the farm. But that’s exactly what Rob Spiro, co-founder of the farm-to-fridge grocery delivery start-up in San Francisco,Good Eggs, did. Spiro and his colleagues from Silicon Valley founded the company a [...]
Continue Reading →Large Family Run Wheat Farm in Montana Sustains Multi-generational Family
April 15, 2013 | Jan Fletcher  Say the word ‘sustainable’ and prepare to pull out a dictionary as people have varying opinions on what that term actually means. Add farming to the mix and efforts to parse out sustainable farming from unsustainable farming run into a thicket of differing opinions. Yet, there’s one definition [...]
Continue Reading →Beacon Food Forest Brings Together Diverse Community to Regenerate Public Lands
April 10, 2013 | Andrea Watts Young fruit and nut trees, P-patch beds, and woodchip paths are just the latest milestones of a three-year volunteer effort to create a food forest in the city of Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. This food forest represents “exactly the opposite of the tragedy of the commons,” said Glenn Herlihy, [...]
Continue Reading →Chicago’s FarmedHere Grows Local The nation’s largest vertical farm opens its doors
Urban farming is part of a new, uber-local trend occurring in the world of food production. One of the latest innovaters to join the movement, FarmedHere, opened their doors earlier this year. Transforming an abandoned 90,000-square-foot warehouse on the outskirts of Chicago into the nation’s largest vertical indoor farm, FarmedHere now has the capacity to [...]
Continue Reading →No Stranger to Urban Agriculture, Detroit Makes it Official with New Zoning Ordinance
April 9, 2013 | Nina Ignaczak  The City of Detroit, once the wealthiest city in the United States, saw its population peak in 1950 at 1.8 million. In the sixty years since, population declined by 60 percent to approximately 713,000 in 2010. As a result, the city’s once bustling 139-square miles contain an estimated [...]
Continue Reading →Wyoming Family Realizes Dream and Finds Profit in Grass Fed Certified Organic Beef Ranch
April 8, 2013 | Trish Popovitch  “Our idea is that sustainable is renewable and so we’re in the solar business because basically the ranch is a big solar panel that we use to harvest sunshine and turn into grass that we turn into beef. We also want to make farming attractive to the next [...]
Continue Reading →Seed Sharing, Coming to a Library Near You: Preserving a diverse array of seeds for the future
Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have been saving and propagating the seeds of their crops from one season to the next. With the advent of industrial agriculture, it has become much more common for farmers to purchase their seeds from large agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and others. Some believe that this shift, [...]
Continue Reading →Vertical Farming Visionary Dr. Dickson Despommier Talks Challenges and Opportunities
“Vertical farming isn’t futuristic; it’s already here,” says vertical farming visionary, Dr. Dickson Despommier. “In 2004 we put the idea on the internet and only got three hits on Google.” Eight years later that same search query on Google now yields 29,800,000 hits. Although recently retired from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Dr. [...]
Continue Reading →Gleaning to Reduce Food Waste: An ancient practice finds new life in modern times
Captured in Jean Francois Millet’s famous painting The Gleaners, the ancient practice of gleaning—collecting leftover crops from a farmer’s field after harvest—was an early form of welfare for the needy. It turns out that the practice is alive and well, and could be one of many ways to reduce the enormous amount of food waste [...]
Continue Reading →WSU Extension Offers Home Food Production Program for those Limited by Financial or Physical Hardship
A new educational program in Cowlitz County, Wash., is taking the fear out of gardening and enabling people who are limited by financial or physical hardship to experience the rewards of having their own garden. In the program’s first year, there were 22 applicants vying for 10 spots; this year, there are 61. “You really [...]
Continue Reading →To Help Small Farmers Meet City’s Demand, Online Startup Directly Connects Local Farms to Buyers
Farmers Web is an 18-month-old start-up that aims to link local farms with local buyers through a wholesale “management tool,” and vibrant online marketplace that allows you to “shop and sell local online, anytime.” The brainchild of co-founder and CEO, Jennifer Goggin, Farmers Web was born in downtown Manhattan from decidedly non-bucolic roots. “I went [...]
Continue Reading →Aquaponics: Urban, local, sustainable, but what is it?
In the continued effort to find more efficient ways to feed a growing global population that is increasingly concentrated in urban areas, many individuals and businesses are turning to aquaponics as a super-efficient urban farming solution. And who doesn’t want to make our food system more efficient? Aquaponics, a method of growing food and raising [...]
Continue Reading →Kalamazoo Farmers Market to see changes under People’s Food Co-op, opens May 4
KALAMAZOO, MI — Some changes will come to the Kalamazoo Farmers Market under the management of People’s Food Co-op of Kalamazoo when it opens May 4. Co-op officials plan to have vendors identify themselves as growers, resellers or artisans and plan to grow shopper traffic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, among other aspects. People’s Food Co-op’s [...]
Continue Reading →Letter: Trust that planned Flint Farmers’ Market move will work out well
I think “controversial” is too strong a word to apply to the planned relocation of the Flint Farmers’ Market from its longtime site on East Boulevard Drive to the vacant former Flint Journal Print and Distribution Building at East First and Stevens streets. It’s really about the warm, nostalgiac feelings for the old market. Those [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Markets: Rhubarb worth stalking in early spring
By David Karp March 15, 2013, 11:21 a.m. Rhubarb is one of the great joys of spring, with its rosy color, earthy tang and old-fashioned allure, and the story of its local rise and fall is as intriguing as its flavor. Just a generation or two ago, it was widely cultivated in Southern California, but [...]
Continue Reading →Flint Farmers’ Market vendors, organizers say new location will bring positive results to the area
By Sarah Schuch | sschuch@mlive.com on March 13, 2013 at 4:24 PM, updated March 13, 2013 at 7:11 PM To them it’s part of a bigger picture of how to help growth of vendors and the market and to participate in the revitalization of downtown Flint, organizers said during an open house Wednesday morning. And [...]
Continue Reading →7 things to know about the Flint Farmers’ Market moving downtown
FLINT, MI — Management operating the Flint Farmers’ Market last week announced plans to move the market to downtown Flint. The move comes after more than 70 years of the market being located on the city’s north side. Here’s a quick look at what you need to know about the move. For more information, check [...]
Continue Reading →The Market is Moving in 2014!
Flint Farmers’ Market Announces Plans to Move Back Downtown The Flint Farmers’ Market, managed by Uptown Reinvestment Corporation (URC) announced today plans to relocate the market to the former Flint Journal printing facility at 300 E. First Street. The move allows the market to undergo significant updates and expansion, and marks its return to the [...]
Continue Reading →Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids seeks concession sellers
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Fulton Street Farmers Market plans to host hot food vendors throughout its upcoming season. The Midtown market through Friday, March 1, is taking proposals from food trucks and other concession sellers. Information is here. The market hosted hot food vendors part of the time in 2012 after a $2.7 million renovation. [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Market Coalition Board of Directors Elections 2013
Farmers Market Coalition Board of Directors elections is now underway. All members in good standing can vote by March 12th. Read about the position requirements and the candidates below and cast your vote today! Members of the Board of Directors are FMC member volunteers with demonstrated leadership experience in the field of farmers markets and [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers markets: Kosher dishes
By David Karp February 16, 2013 The prepared food vendors at local farmers markets cater to a world of tastes and ethnicities, from Filipino balut to halalshawarma, but until recently none served observant Jews who follow kosher dietary laws. It fell to a secular Jew, Michele Grant, fresh off the success of her Grilled Cheese [...]
Continue Reading →Downtown Market gets liquor license
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The newDowntown Market being built on Ionia Avenue south of Wealthy Street SW will have a liquor license of its own.The license will allow the market staff to serve alcohol at functions hosted by the market and allow the market to serve as a caterer for other events, said DDA board [...]
Continue Reading →New Muskegon Farmer’s Market plan unveiled to city commission; public vetting process to begin
By Dave Alexander on February 11, 2013 at 7:51 PM MUSKEGON, MI – The Muskegon Downtown Development Corp. is proposing the city of Muskegon move its farmer’s market to vacant lots at Terrace Street and West Western Avenue in the heart of downtown Muskegon. Downtown promoters are asking the Muskegon City Commission to accept their [...]
Continue Reading →America’s Best Farmers’ Markets
Liz Weiss If you haven’t noticed, farmers’ markets aren’t just for chefs anymore. Yes, culinary artists have always perused local stands for the freshest ingredients, but the last few years have ushered in throngs of curious foodies following their taste buds to wild berries and fresh greens. And with an eclectic array of markets now [...]
Continue Reading →From the Department of Good News: Farmers’ Markets Keep Growing
The worst drought since the 1950s continues to wreak havoc on America’s bread basket, shriveling up commodity corn and soybean crops and driving up food prices. But there is heartening news from the local agricultural sector: Farmers’ markets are booming. Last week, the USDA released its annual update of the National Farmers Market Directory*, which is now 7,864 [...]
Continue Reading →Northern W.Va. farmers market takes orders online
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A farmers market in north-central West Virginia is making it easier for customers to obtain fresh food. The Mountaineer Country Farmers Market takes orders online for food produced by farmers within a 75-mile radius of Morgantown. Lesa Gay owns and operates the farmers market with her husband, Hugh. She tells West Virginia [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers’ Market Boom Not Reaching Many Food Stamp Users
Farmers’ markets have grown more than fourfold in less than two decades. According to new data from the USDA, there are 7,864 farmers’ markets in the U.S., up from 1,755 in 1994. However, farmers’ market access for the nation’s poorest consumers remains limited. According to the USDA’s farmers market database, only 1,645 farmers’ markets, or [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Markets: A guide to the best winter citrus
By David Karp January 25, 2013 Midwinter is peak time for citrus to be eaten fresh, and this year quality has been superb, probably because of the extended heat earlier in the growing season. Here are tips about which varieties to look for now and from which growing areas, including recommended growers, tips for choosing [...]
Continue Reading →The Economic Impact of Farmers Markets
by Mary Shepherd Every farmers market brings “sticky” dollars to its area – that is, dollars that are spent at the market and “stick” to the local economy, being re-spent locally rather than being siphoned away to distant parent companies or other stakeholders, according to Richard McCarthy, Executive Director of Market Umbrella, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit [...]
Continue Reading →Hearty Recipes: Make the Most of Winter Produce
inter is often seen as a barren, icy season with little vegetation making it past the first big freeze. When entering the grocery store in the winter, people are often disappointed by the lack of quality in the produce they enjoy during the warmer seasons. Fresh produce is essential to many delicious recipes, and luckily, [...]
Continue Reading →Farm Bill Extension a Cold Shoulder to Farmers Markets
On January 1st, Congress passed a nine-month farm bill extension attached to the larger ‘fiscal cliff’ compromise. Despite a variety of reforms and reauthorizations agreed to earlier this year by Senate and House Agriculture Committees, this extension continues to fund a full year of direct payments for commodities (at $5 billion), while failing to provide [...]
Continue Reading →Ben Affleck, Seraphina and Violet Spend Time Together at Local Farmers’ Market
Ben Affleck may not have been nominated for best director for the upcoming Academy Awards—but he surely wins best dad in our opinion! The 40-year-old actor was spotted out with his two daughters, 7-year-old Violet and 4-year-old Seraphina, at a Los Angeles farmers’ market Saturday, looking all the part of doting dad. The actor had his [...]
Continue Reading →What Makes a Good Farmers’ Market?
Living in Washington, D.C., I enjoyed dropping by the Dupont Circle Farmers’ Market every Sunday. The market has a robust feel to it — a sense of fullness, bounty and dynamism. The producers proudly display their wares under banners describing their nearby locations and sustainable practices. The shoppers browse eagerly, asking questions and loading up [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers markets keep popping up
They’re popping up all over the region these days, but the winter farmers market is a concept that still puzzles skeptics. While root vegetables indeed take center stage this time of year, the Lower Hudson Valley’s indoor and outdoor markets also have salad greens, cheese, meat, poultry, fish and more, making the farm-to-table experience a [...]
Continue Reading →Though no longer trendy, kiwis can still be quite tasty
By David Karp December 7, 2012 Kiwi are now plentiful at farmers markets, but they’re not always easy to find in prime condition. To produce high-quality kiwis, growers need to apply crop-specific expertise in pollination, pruning, irrigation, ripening and storage. Many farmers market vendors are generalists for whom kiwis are a minor sideline, so they [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Markets: Fresh, Nutritious, Local
Top 10 reasons to shop at a Farmers’ Market Farmers markets are easy to find. Use the USDA Farmers Markets Search to find one near you. Due to their flexible locations, some community farmers markets provide fresh, healthy foods when other sources aren’t as easily accessed. Learn more about how the USDA helps to expand [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Markets: The best of early winter
By David Karp December 29, 2012 Although summer claims many of the sexiest, most attention-grabbing vegetables, such as eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, in Southern California the vegetables that thrive in winter are equally abundant and alluring. Roots, crucifers and peas may be available year-round, but winter is their time to shine. In the spirit [...]
Continue Reading →Winter farmer’s markets growing in popularity
RED WING – The number of indoor farmers markets in the United States has increased by nearly 50 percent since 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture reported in November. That year there were just more than 1,200 winter markets; now, that number sits at slightly less than 1,700. “These investments are a win-win,” Agriculture [...]
Continue Reading →Flower Daze at the Market MAY 19 & MAY 26 Sponsored by Bishop International Airport!
Flint, MI – Saturday, May 19 and Saturday, May 26 will mark the beginning of flower season at the Flint Farmers’ Market. This year’s events are sponsored by Bishop International Airport. Dozens of LOCAL plant and flower growers will be at the market from 8 AM to 5 PM. Shoppers will be able to talk [...]
Continue Reading →Flint Farmers’ Market announces neighborhood sites
Flint, MI – Today the Flint Farmers’ Market announced they plan to create two small neighborhood markets within the city of Flint, one in the north and one in the south. The Flint Farmers’ Market wants to be sure that as many Flint residents as possible have access to fresh healthy locally grown produce. Many [...]
Continue Reading →In praise of winter farmers markets
So we know that Michigan hit the Top 10 nationally in winter farm markets at the end of 2011. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development counted 33 winter farmers markets in the state in 2011, a 58 poercent percent increase over the 19 in 2010. But we still have a long way to go to catch [...]
Continue Reading →USDA – Winter Farmers Markets Expand
Now More than 1,200 Locations for Fresh Local Foods Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced that the number of winter farmers markets is increasing. According to the updated National Farmers Market Directory, since 2010, the number of winter markets has increased 38 percent, from 886 to 1,225. These winter markets also account for nearly [...]
Continue Reading →Michigan Farmers Markets Association hosts 2-day conference as number of markets grow
The Michigan Farmers Markets Association is hosting a new gathering in March as the number of such markets grows in the state. The first Michigan Farmers Market Association Conference is March 6 and 7 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in East Lansing. The gathering takes place during Agriculture and Natural Resources Week at [...]
Continue Reading →State of the State bodes well for Michigan farmers
Michigan farmers are key players in Michigan’s progress in 2012, agriculture officials said today, following Gov. Rick Snyder’s State of the State address Wednesday night. Keith Creagh, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, expanded on some of the highlights in an interview this morning. Nutrition, obesity One of the state’s biggest [...]
Continue Reading →Low-income families are buying more at local farmers markets with Double Up program
GRAND RAPIDS — When officials at local farmers markets signed on with a program aimed at improving access to healthy foods while boosting the West Michigan agricultural economy, they had no idea what they were in for. In its first year as a true statewide program, the Double Up Food Bucks program sponsored by the [...]
Continue Reading →Community-based food system is focus of Flint’s upcoming Food for Change Summit
Flint, Michigan, January 16, 2012 – The topic of food is big these days, and discussions around concepts such as local, fresh, organic, accessibility, and healthy have moved beyond specialty stores and into family kitchens and conference rooms. The reason? Food and food sources have changed dramatically – many believe for the worse – over [...]
Continue Reading →Cultivating Health
By Tracy Harding An Acts Matter essay For the Tidings Posted: 2:00 AM January 06, 2012 An Acts Matter essay We can alleviate a hunger pain with a quick fix of highly processed food. But is the goal convenience or is it nourishment? As a parent and the director of Rogue Valley Farm to School, [...]
Continue Reading →Farmers Markets Flourish in Winter Snows
If you’re a fresh vegetable lover, it’s hard to get excited about what’s available in the supermarket produce section in the dead of winter. Whatever is there often has made a long journey from a field in a distant, sunny locale and been sprayed with something to keep it looking fresh. It’s usually a little [...]
Continue Reading →Double Up Food Bucks
Last summer at 54 farmers’ markets throughout Michigan, shoppers using Bridge Cards (EBT/Food Stamps) had the chance to get more fresh fruits and veggies with Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB). DUFB matches Bridge Card purchases at participating markets with up to $20 in DUFB tokens. These tokens can then be spent on fresh, Michigangrown fruits [...]
Continue Reading →Video: The story behind homemade “chow chow relish”.
NOV 21 2011 GREAT LAKES ECHO NO COMMENTS Ardella Lee sells her chow chow relish – made from an old family recipe – at the Flint Farmer’s Market in Flint, Mich. Watch the video below to hear her talk about the chemical-free relish and how she remains spry at 84 years old. This video was filmed and [...]
Continue Reading →Flint Farmers’ Market helping to keep Thanksgiving costs down
Posted: Nov 15, 2011 12:23 PM ESTUpdated: Nov 15, 2011 1:27 PM EST By Marc Jacobson FLINT (WJRT) -(11/15/11) – When they tell you to “keep it down” at the Flint Farmer’s Market, they’re talking about Thanksgiving dinner costs.”You can talk to several of our vendors and they are trying as much as they can to meet [...]
Continue Reading →Local Food Is No Small Potatoes: Farmers Rake In Almost $5 Billion
Dave Martin/APDesmond Brown sells fruits and vegetables at a farmer’s market outside the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. It’s easy to think of local food as a diversion for people with plenty of time and money — something that could never be a major source of food in a globalized world. But the number $4.8 [...]
Continue Reading →“Food bucks” help grow community health, economy
By DUANE M. ELLING A brisk October weekend finds the vendor displays at the Flint Farmers’ Market groaning under the weight of crisp apples, brightly colored squash, fresh meats and cheeses, and other locally produced foods. Getting more of those nutritious, farm–fresh products to the tables of area low–income families and growing the economic health of local small [...]
Continue Reading →Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food
When Michigan produce is in high season, here are some tips for being a discriminating shopper at the Flint Farmers’ Market: Please don’t forget the inside market. Most of our growers are outside, but from meat and poultry to baked goods, wine and cheese, you’ll find the same great selections inside during the summer that [...]
Continue Reading →Ten Reasons to Buy Local Food
Locally grown food tastes better Food grown in your own community is usually picked within the past day or two. It’s crisp, sweet, and loaded with flavor. Several studies have shown that the average distance food travels from farm to plate is 1,500 miles. In a weeklong delay from harvest to dinner plate, sugars turn [...]
Continue Reading →Grown in Flint
Photo: John Ehlke | The Flint Journal Joanna Lehrman helps Gina and Larry Tower of Flint Township finish their purchases for a ‘Flint Salsa’ at the Edible Flint’s Co-Op Booth during the Flint Farmers Market on Boulevard Dr. in Flint Saturday morning. The Edible Flint’s Co-op features selected food from farmers near Flint This is [...]
Continue Reading →Edible Flint creating buzz at Farmers’ Market
Edible Flint’s stall at the Farmers’ Market is a buzz of activity. Growers stand behind their crops, eager to talk about what they’re selling and offer samples. Recipe cards sit in stacks on the table, offering unconventional uses for market staples. A map of the city hangs under the canopy with the participating gardens marked. [...]
Continue Reading →Flint gardeners plan to grow greens in winter, and jobs
Urban gardening projects have been sprouting all over the city, but one new project may be the city’s most visible, even before a single seed has been planted. A massive hoop house — a kind of greenhouse that uses a plastic covering to hold in heat from the sun — now stands covered in Christmas [...]
Continue Reading →A local urban farm now relies on solar energy for its electricity
Jacky King took advantage of what the earth and sun had to offer when it came to powering his urban farm near Flint’s northside. Forty solar panels were up and running today at King’s Youth Karate Ka Harvesting Earth Farm, 1023 E. Princeton Ave. Later in the week geo-thermal technology will be added to the [...]
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