monthly news from ASAP    |   JANUARY 2023    |    asapconnections.org

Network at the Business of Farming Conference!

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ASAP's Business of Farming Conference : [link removed] (coming up on Feb. 11 in Asheville) offers so many opportunities to network across the local farming and food community! Of course, there's networking with farming peers over locally sourced breakfast and lunch and in between workshop sessions. The Exhibitor Hall : [link removed] lets you connect with businesses and agencies that can support the growth of your farm business. The Grower-Buyer Meeting : [link removed] is a chance to get your business—and products—in front of potential restaurant, grocery, and wholesale buyers. This year's meeting includes many new buyers as well as stalwarts, like Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery, pictured above. Read more from Swamp Rabbit's Mary Walsh, who will also give the opening address at the conference, in the Faces of Local interview further down in this newsletter.  Grower-Buyer Meeting Participants: Ayni51 : [link removed] / Equal Plates Project : [link removed] / Food Experience Catering : [link removed] / Gospel Ice Cream : [link removed] / Holeman and Finch Asheville : [link removed] / Little Chango : [link removed] / Mother Earth Food : [link removed] / Red Fiddle Vittles : [link removed] / Sierra Nevada : [link removed] / Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery : [link removed] / Tastee Diner : [link removed] / TRACTOR Food and Farms : [link removed] / Waynesville Inn Golf Resort and Spa : [link removed] / WNC Farm to Table : [link removed] Exhibitors: Asheville Tool Library : [link removed] / Carolina Farm Credit : [link removed] / Carolina Farm Stewardship Association : [link removed] / Cedar Grove Law : [link removed] / Clean Water Lab : [link removed] / Critical Services Microgrid Group of WNC : [link removed] /
Dirtcraft Living Soils : [link removed] / Impact Health : [link removed] / Johnson Insurance Services : [link removed] / Mountain BizWorks : [link removed] / NC FarmLink : [link removed] / North Carolina Agricultural Mediation Program : [link removed] / North Carolina Ginseng Association : [link removed] / Organic Growers School : [link removed] / Farm Service Agency : [link removed] / Western Women Business Center : [link removed] / WNC Farmers Market : [link removed] 
 
More buyers and exhibitors may be added!
 
Register for the conference now! : [link removed] Scholarships are available for limited-resource and BIPOC farmers, as well as discounts for farm partners registering together. Thank you our top sponsors! : [link removed] Farm to School Mini-Grants
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"The garden expansion allowed us to grow foods like cucumbers and beans that take up more space!" describes Althea Dunn of Pisgah Collective, an early education center in Pisgah Forest, NC, which received Growing Minds funding last year. "Our students got to experience everything from building and getting the new garden bed ready, starting plants from seed, taking care of them and watching them grow, harvesting, and then learning all about pickling! Over 60 students went home with homemade pickles that they made from garden grown produce at our school!" 
Growing Minds mini-grant funding : [link removed] of up to $1,000 is available now for schools and preschools located in the 18 westernmost counties of North Carolina. Application deadlines are rolling on the 15th of each month through April 15, 2023. Opportunities include: 
Farm to School Activity Mini-Grants: up to $1,000 for K-12 schools to offer farm field trips, local food cooking and taste tests, school gardens, and local food served in school cafeterias. 
Farm to Preschool Activity Mini-Grants: up to $1,000 for early childcare providers to offer farm field trips, local food cooking and taste tests, school gardens, and local food served schools. 
Farm to Preschool Equipment Mini-Grants: up to $500 for food processing of cooking equipment. The goal is to help preschools provide fresh, local foods in meals and/or snacks to their students.



Meet Your Farmer: Smallholding Farm
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Watch the latest Meet Your Farmer video : [link removed] from Growing Minds. Farmers Ellie Goldstein and Daniel Bryant are using minimal-to-no-till practices and connecting with their community at Smallholding Farm in Morganton, NC. The video—which offers a glimpse into farm life for young people or anyone else—highlights their year-round carrot crop. 
"This last year we had it as a goal to grow carrots all year long," says Daniel. "Winter is my favorite time to grow carrots because the flavor just gets so sweet." 
"That happens after the frost," explains Ellie. "They just instantly get the sucrose, and they get very, very, very sweet." 
You can find more Meet Your Farmer videos, as well as related lesson plans and classroom resources, on the Growing Minds website : [link removed]. Thanks to Fusion Digital Media : [link removed] for producing this video!



Wendy Brugh and Bill Durr Join ASAP's Board of Directors

Two new board members joined ASAP's board of directors in January: Wendy Brugh and Bill Durr. In December, Amy Ager of Hickory Nut Gap Farm and Julie Jensen of Echoview Farm both rotated off the board, having each served the maximum of two consecutive three-year terms. 
Wendy Brugh is a farmer and co-owner of Dry Ridge Farm : [link removed] in Madison County, NC. "On a personal level, ASAP has played a huge role in helping us to grow our farm business," says Wendy, "from giving us our first opportunity to join a market at Asheville City Market South to helping us connect with restaurants at Business of Farming Conference’s Grower-Buyer Meetings to Appalachian Grown branding—and simply increasing demand for well-grown local food in our area! Besides their direct impact on my business, I especially value the work ASAP does to improve access to local food for our entire community, through markets, Farm Fresh for Health initiatives, and Growing Minds farm to school programs. ASAP’s work is critical in building a resilient local food system and food secure communities in the Southern Appalachians." 
: [link removed] Durr is an attorney at Ward and Smith, P.A., which has partnered with ASAP to provide legal workshops for farmers at the Business of Farming Conference and elsewhere. "ASAP’s support of local farmers is so important and necessary," says Bill. "I grew up on a small farm and later in life had the privilege of owning a farm where we raised black angus cattle. With this background, I am well aware of the multitude of challenges the farming community encounters on a daily basis. The support and guidance ASAP provides is an incredible resource for new and experienced farmers alike." Learn more about the rest of ASAP's board of directors : [link removed] here.



New ASAP Staff: Danielle Raucheisen and Emory Brandon
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Two new staff members joined ASAP's team as well in January.  : [link removed]
 

Danielle Raucheisen is ASAP's new Growing Minds Program Manager. Danielle moved to Asheville almost a year ago from Pennsylvania, where she spent eight years at the School District of Philadelphia working in nutrition education and health and wellness programs. 
 

Emory Brandon is ASAP's new graphic design coordinator! Emory grew up in Western North Carolina and studied at Savannah College of Art and Design. She started her career in Chicago, working at Vosges Haut-Chocolat, before moving back to WNC. In Asheville, she's worked as a designer for Moog Music Synthesizers and Seltzer Goods.



Last Chance for the Print Local Food Guide!
The deadline for updating your information for ASAP's annual print Local Food Guide is Jan. 31. You can do it yourself online (login here : [link removed]) or over the phone by calling the ASAP office at 828-236-1282. Print listings are $30 for farms, $100 for businesses, and free for farmers markets. An online listing is completely free and can be updated any time throughout the year.



FACES OF LOCAL
Mary Walsh
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ASAP likes to share the stories of people who help us fulfill our mission. This month we talked to Mary Walsh, co-owner of Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery : [link removed] in Greenville, SC. Supporting local farmers has been at the core of Swamp Rabbit since it opened in 2011. Mary will give the opening address at the Business of Farming Conference on Feb. 11.
 

Swamp Rabbit is a lot of things—cafe, grocery store, wholesale distributor, bike trail rest stop, community hub. Can you talk about how that model has grown over the past decade?
 

We’re also a bakery! When we started out, we were just a cafe, bakery, and grocery in 1800 square feet. Every couple of years we took over more and more space in our building, until last year when we finally took over the last part of our building and we’re now closer to 10,000 square feet! Our grocery expansion made the biggest difference in our ability to buy more from farmers. That allowed us to more than triple our buying.
 

We started the food hub around year five. At the time we weren’t exactly looking to get into the wholesale business, but there was such a need in our community and we were already spending all this time sourcing local foods, it just made sense. The Food Hub really helped us get to the next level in buying volumes and helped us be able to more reliably order and crop plan with farmers. 
 

Through the years we have kept true to our mission to support local farmers and food vendors, but also to be a community gathering place. Our parking is terrible, but we will always maintain our grassy areas outside. It is fantastic for people to rest and enjoy the outdoors. Our outdoor area may be one of the things that sets us apart the most. We’re not just a grocery that you run in and out of to get your goods, but we ‘re an experience where we hope you’ll linger, meet someone new, run into your neighbors, or better yet, run into your farmers.
 

What are you most excited about in your work these days?
 

Jac, my business partner, and I still work at the Swamp five to seven days a week, and we’re always trying to make things better and better. While the amount of different things we do can be overwhelming and exhausting, it definitely also keeps things exciting. I’m excited about so many things, like the winter strawberries we’re getting in that actually taste good, the South Carolina and Georgia citrus that has been delicious, and flower season. We also have some events coming up. I’m half-Chinese and we celebrate Lunar New Year every year with house-made dumplings. We invite other Asian-owned businesses in the community to come serve food. We also celebrate Mardis Gras, where we’ll have the Greenville Jazz Collective play and serve gumbo and jambalaya. Every time our cafe makes a menu change, which we do a lot to highlight the seasons, I’m excited. Our employees and farmers are fun, and funny, and I always reflect on how lucky I am to be excited to go to work every day.
 

About how many farmers does Swamp Rabbit work with? What region does that cover?
 

This is an ever-changing number, but at the last count we were over 150 farms over the last year. We used to use a 150-mile radius, but realized that that would prohibit things like South Carolina citrus from making the local list. We focus on source-identification and if we can identify the farm, and drive there in a day, we count it as a local farm. Generally South Carolina and neighboring states are mostly local, and farther we may consider regional.
 

How have ASAP’s Grower-Buyer Meetings helped Swamp Rabbit connect with farms?
 

It seems like at each one we have made at least one new connection that grew to be pretty important to us. I met Ellijay Farms : [link removed], and now we use their shiitakes in our kitchen, sell them in our grocery, and wholesale them through our food hub. 
 

Is there a local food or a perfect seasonal dish that you look forward to all year long? 
 

I love making homemade strawberry ice cream during strawberry season. Two vegetables that I love, that we never seem to sell a lot of (but want to change that!) are eggplant and napa cabbage. Eggplant is so good in so many things, and napa cabbage can make a really great stir-fry or even better, dumpling filler. Citrus season has been really fun too, I eat a normal amount but I have fun watching in amazement as my husband and sons feast on pounds and pounds of Georgia kisses, sumo citrus, and mandarins every night.
 

Find out more about ASAP’s Business of Farming Conference : [link removed] and Grower-Buyer Meeting : [link removed].

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

Chef Iris Rodriguez's Yuca Fritters with Chorizo : [link removed]
Our recipe this month was shared by Iris Rodriguez, chef and co-owner of Little Chango : [link removed] in Asheville's South Slope. Iris's chorizo is sourced from Vandele Farms : [link removed] in Lake Lure.
 

"This recipe kind of reminds me of alcapurrias, a traditional fritter in Puerto Rico," says Iris. "Vandele Farms is a small farm run by a husband and wife, they sustainably raise their pigs there. They don’t have a kill facility in their farm, and they butcher based on the orders that they receive so you know quality is great." 
 

You can find cassava root for this recipe from Lee's One Fortune Farm : [link removed], or try it with other starchy root vegetables, like sweet potatoes. 
Ingredients : [link removed] Rodriguez at Vandele Farms 1 medium tomato1 small red onion1/2 bunch of cilantro leavesOlive oilLime juice (1 lime)Kosher saltCanola oil1 pound of cassava (yuca) root1/2 pound local chorizo
DirectionsRinse the cilantro leaves in cold water and dry them with a kitchen towel. Mince the cilantro, small dice tomatoes, and thinly slice the red onion. In a stainless steel bowl, combine all these ingredients and season with Kosher salt, olive oil, and lime juice to taste. Set aside while working on the rest of the recipe.Cut yuca root crosswise into about 4-inch pieces. Cut those pieces lengthwise and remove the fibrous core. Grate the yuca on the smallest side of a box grater.In a large sauté pan, heat a generous amount of canola oil over medium/high heat. The temperature should be at 350F.Grab 1 tablespoon at a time of the grated yuca masa and flatten it into 1-inch round thin patties. Fry patties until golden brown in both sides. It should take around 2 to 3 minutes. Repeat in batches until all the yuca patties have been fried.In a sauté pan cook chorizo at medium heat. Make sure to constantly stir the chorizo so it cooks evenly. It takes about 15 minutes.Spoon a small amount of the chorizo into each yuca fritter and garnish with the veggie mixture that you set aside. Enjoy!

MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS
"Become an avid agricultural supporter one ingredient at a time. This year, take more trips to area farmers markets to add more freshly harvested and crafted ingredients to your table. The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, an Asheville-based nonprofit serving the Southern Appalachian region, offers information on year-round and seasonal tailgate markets." 
—Tiana Kennell in the Citizen Times : [link removed] 

"If you’re into eating locally and supporting sustainable agriculture, go to Asheville—and eat, eat, eat. This town of less than 100,000 people has 17 farmers’ markets, and the local restaurant scene is all about taking advantage of the seasonal produce sold there. And don’t miss the area’s microbreweries."—Trip Adivisor : [link removed]'s Best Food Destinations of 2023

CONNECT WITH US
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asapconnections.org : [link removed] | growing-minds.org : [link removed]
appalachiangrown.org : [link removed] | fromhere.org : [link removed]
 
Donate to support local food, strong farms, and healthy communities today! : [link removed]
 
ASAP's mission is to help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.



ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) - 306 W. Haywood Street - Asheville - NC - 28801

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