2007 Local Food Guide features 225 mountain farms
sound, economically viable and health-promoting.

You may be wondering about the impact of the recordbreaking Easter weekend freeze on the availability of farm products listed in the Local Food Guide. The guide does include dozens of apple orchards, which were severely impacted. However, many will be offering other farm products and services, and ASAP aims to encourage users of the Local Food Guide to call their favorite apple orchard and ask what they have to offer in 2007.

Beyond apples, crops with severe damage include other tree fruits, blueberries, and some nursery plants. The strawberry and blackberry/raspberry crops will be reduced but still available and delicious. Harvest schedules for some spring vegetables were pushed back. But most vegetables typically available in spring, summer, and fall will face no impact from the freeze. We look forward to a bountiful year from most of our region's local farms.

The 2007 Local Food Guide is now available throughout the region. In its fifth year of publication, the Local Food Guide is the leading resource for people interested in buying food grown here in the mountains. It is researched and designed by Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP).

The 80-page guide includes sections listing family farms, u-pick farms, farm stores, farms to visit, and farm lodging. Businesses that buy locally-grown food such as restaurants, grocers, B&Bs, bakers, and caterers are listed as well. The focus is on western North Carolina, but the guide includes some farms and markets in the neighboring mountain counties of Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Information is re-gathered for accuracy each year, and extensive outreach ensures that farms and businesses newly focusing on local food come into the publication with each new edition. The 2007 Local Food Guide includes more than forty new farms, five new farmers markets, and several new restaurants and grocers. Farm products featured include vegetables, tree fruits, berries, beef, pork, lamb, chicken, rabbit, milk, cheese, eggs, cornmeal, sorghum molasses, honey, trout, shrimp, and much more.

"Whether you are an avid cook who likes to visit farmers' markets and buy direct from the grower, a busy person seeking the freshness of locally-grown food at the grocery store, or a visitor to the region seeking great regional and seasonal restaurant cuisine, the Local Food Guide is your resource," said Peter Marks, Local Food Campaign Coordinator for ASAP.

"Farms here are lucky that we have ASAP creating a link between growers and the public," says farmer Glenda Ploeger of Cane Creek Asparagus & Co. "It's a national model. I talk with farmers in other parts of the country, and they are not able to be as successful without such strong communication tools. In other places, customers interested in buying local don't know where to turn."

When fully distributed (by mid-May), the guide is available at more than 250 western North Carolina locations including all visitor centers and highway welcome centers, the Asheville Regional Airport, bookstores and cafes, and some health providers' offices. The guide is also available at listed grocers such as Earth Fare, Greenlife Grocery, and four of the region's community food co-ops. About 100 Ingles Grocery stores will make the guide available during the month of June.

The complete content of the Local Food Guide is also available online, at AppalachianGrown.org. Online listings are searchable by product, town, and county.

Production of the 2007 Local Food Guide is supported by the Golden LEAF Foundation, the USDA Risk Management Agency, and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. Greenlife Grocery and Earth Fare are key business sponsors.

The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project is a nonprofit organization that supports farmers and rural communities in the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Southern Appalachians by providing education, mentoring, promotion, web resources, and community and policy development. ASAP's mission is to create and expand regional community-based and integrated food systems that are locally owned and controlled, environmentally