Homestead mailing list

[Bevanron <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Just for kicks, I looked up the Georgia information and shot off an
email to the FMNP contact person on how and if an individual farmer
would be approved to sell through the system.  Some states apparently
don't allow individual farmers to sell.....
Anyway, I went to the state website for farmers markets in Georgia, and
of the 15 markets, the closest one for me would be in Atlanta, actually
Marietta, 75 miles away.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/States/Georgia.htm
This website shows which markets take WIC vouchers, and of the 15, only
3 take vouchers: Atlanta, Columbus, and Augusta.  That particular
Atlanta market is closer to 100 miles from me, Columbus and Augusta are
5+ hours from here....
It seems that the program is interested in providing fresh fruit and
veggies to inner city folks since only the largest cities and locations
have WIC voucher approval.  They could care less about supporting local
farmers in rural areas.
Basically, this doesn't help the little guys like me and Lynn very much
since we don't have huge semi's to truck our stuff into the cities and
we aren't large farms.
I clicked on the link to one of the FMNP markets, the one in
Morningside, and to sell there, you have to be certified organic....I am
making an assumption that that would be the case elsewhere in the state,
too at places that accept WIC.

According to this website,
http://www.n-georgia.com/farmers_markets.htm
"Georgia has the largest network of farmers markets in the country."
ROTFLMAO
If that is true, we are in trouble...
Of the markets on that list, NONE are within 75 miles of me....almost
all are either in Atlanta or in south Georgia or at least south of
Atlanta, except for the Athens market, which is 4 hours away on the
other side of the state.
It's a sucky Catch-22...move away from civilization to be able to avoid
covenants so that you can raise what you want, and you move away from
your markets...

Bev

Lynda wrote:
> Isn't Lynn in PA? 
> http://www.thefoodtrust.org/php/programs/farmers.market.program.php
>
> Here's the info on the WIC Farmers Market program. 
> http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/FMNP/FMNPfaqs.htm

--
erthnsky AT bellsouth.net  BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm      NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W