ASAP launches new farmers market tomorrow at A-B Tech

Posted on — Jeff Fobes
From Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project:

In response to farmers market closures due to the COVID-19 emergency, ASAP has organized an interim outdoor farmers market on the campus of A-B Tech in Asheville, beginning this Saturday, March 21, from 9 a.m. to noon. The new market will operate for as long as necessary, possibly expanding to other locations and days of the week as needed.

The ASAP Farmers Market at A-B Tech is designed to protect shoppers and vendors and the market will enforce several safety procedures. The number of people in the market area at one time will be tightly controlled. Please approach from the end of Persistence Dr. (off Victoria Rd.), and remain queued in your vehicle until staff instructs you to park and move into the market. No walkups allowed. Social distances of six feet will be maintained between vendors and shoppers. Customers will select pre-packaged or bunched items and will not handle other product on vendor tables. Children, if they must attend with adult shoppers, must be closely supervised.

To minimize potential virus transmission points, no payments will be transacted at the market. Purchases will be paid in a secure online portal after shopping. Credit, debit, and SNAP/EBT are accepted (no Double SNAP right now). ASAP will cover the risk for honor system payments, and farmers will be paid in full for all product sold. Customers will have the option to provide a donation to help cover operational costs and shortages.

Vendors for this Saturday, March 21, are: Beeswax and Butter, Black Trumpet Farm, Blue Ridge Mountain Creamery, Brew Naturals, Carolina Flowers, Dry Ridge Farm, Headwaters Market Garden,Hominy Farm, Jah Works Farm, Jake’s Farm, Rio Bertolini’s Fresh Pasta, Serotonin Ferments, Shanti Elixirs, Simple Bread, Sister of Mother Earth, Sleight Family Farm, Spinning Spider Creamery, Sweetheart BakeryTen Mile Farm, and Wildwood Herbal.

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes
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