“Nigerian Appalac...

A few weeks ago, just as fall was starting to peek around the hillsides in Appalachia, I got to meet Tunde Wey. Tunde is a Nigerian-born chef based in New Orleans who came to my friend Lora’s Egypt, Ky. farm, Big Switch, to prepare part of a meal that Lora termed, “Nigerian...
Transition in Action: Mae Humiston, Community Farm Alliance

Transition in Action: M...

September’s third guest blog comes to us from Mae Humiston, Development and Communications Associate for Community Farm Alliance. First off: Who are you? And what’s your role at your organization? My name is Mae Humiston. I was born and raised in the mountains of Virginia and...
Appalachia is a borderland: Lessons from the third annual Appalachian Food Summit

Appalachia is a borderl...

Food is the great equalizer. That wasn’t the official theme of this year’s Appalachian Food Summit, but it should be what most attendees walked away understanding when the last crumb of peach upside down cake was eaten. Presenters throughout the day-long program talked of...
Transition in Action: Andrew Crosson, Rural Support Partners

Transition in Action: A...

Our first guest blog post about local food comes to us from Andrew Crosson, the Director of Regional Initiatives at Rural Support Partners.  Who are you? And what’s your role at your organization? My name is Andrew Crosson. Through my organization, Rural Support Partners, I have the good...

Transition in Action: S...

September is about harvest. The last vestiges of summer planting are either being put up for winter, or picked for the plate at supper a few final times. Fall festivals also begin this month, teeming and busting at the seams with local delicacies being cooked to order, or sold in jars...
Appalachian Food Summit wins 2015 John Egerton Prize

Appalachian Food Summit...

Food is very important in Appalachia. Not that food isn’t important everywhere. But Appalachians are distinctly connected to their food as a cultural definition of who they are as a people – whether they themselves would say it in those words or not. The fact is that one of...
More news of local food success in Kentucky

More news of local food...

Kentucky leads the way in federally funded local foods projects at 1,659. That latest number comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with this one: local food sales topped $11.7 billion last year – that’s billion, with a “b.” That is a huge figure,...
Study: Most Americans could be fed by locally grown food; Big news for Central Appalachian local foods movement

Study: Most Americans c...

A new University of California study has revealed that most areas of the U.S. could feed between 80 to 100 percent of the local population with food grown or raised within 50 miles. This is huge news for the local foods movement, which Central Appalachia has embraced practically whole...