SARE 1999 Highlights

Limited-Resource Growers Profit from Value-Added Ventures

A national kitchen catalog will advertise this "garland" of peppers, grown and strung by farmer members of Appalachian Sustainable Development as part of a value-added enterprise that is helping improve quality of life in the region. Photo by Dick Austin

Farmers in the Appalachian region of Virginia and Tennessee have benefitted from new marketing opportunities created by a coalition working to improve quality of life in the traditionally poor, underemployed region. Aided by a SARE grant, Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD) members have convinced an area grocery store chain to carry locally grown organic produce, boosted direct-to-restaurant sales of vegetables and landed a value-added pepper product in an upscale national kitchen catalog. With ASD's help, farmers are forming community-supported agriculture enterprises that gain consumer investment at the start of a growing season in exchange for supplies of fresh produce. A new commercial kitchen in Sneedville, Tenn., should help others create value-added farm products such as herbal soaps and garlic jellies. Finally, an on-farm research and demonstration project shows producers ways to avoid tomato blight and raise livestock on pasture. [For more information about this Southern Region project, go to www.sare.org/projects/ and search for LS97-084.]

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