“In designing food systems, the foods that need to be freshest when we eat them, the quick-turnaround crops, should be placed close to where we live,” Patel says. “I didn’t really think the farm would be as broad and idealistic as it turned out to be, but I’m pretty idealistic, so it has naturally turned into that.”
Landmark restaurants changed hands, established chefs experimented with new concepts and Asheville lost one food festival and gained a new one.
Through a partnership with Patchwork Urban Farms, chef Gene Ettison is leveraging a new entrepreneurial venture to bring healthy meals and grocery options to Asheville’s food deserts.
A new initiative of the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council enlists the help of UNC Asheville students to track regional data and lay the groundwork for developing appropriate food policy for Asheville and surrounding communities.
From the Get It! Guide: According to MANNA FoodBank’s 2014 Map the Meal Gap study, food insecurity affects 15.3 percent of Western North Carolina. But several local efforts are looking to stop hunger in WNC, bringing the battle to the fields, the pantries, the neighborhoods and even city hall.
From the rancher with the cowboy hat and lasso to the grower on the tractor gazing out over the cornfield, our idea of a farmer is most often of a male — specifically an older, white male. In many ways, statistically speaking, that image isn’t wrong — but it may be changing. Diversity in agriculture is growing in WNC. Who are these new farmers? What challenges are they facing? And what new perspectives will they bring to agriculture in WNC?
From Ed Whitfield’s keynote speech, “A Logical New Approach to Community Development,” to a panel on sources for local funding, there’s something for everyone at the March 18 Bringing It Home conference. Here’s a look at the main sessions and speakers.
The Dec. 31 cover story by Jonathan Ammons, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” examined communities in Asheville that lack supermarkets and access to other sources of affordable, nutritious food. The story explored how these neighborhoods, known as food deserts, came to be and how grassroots organizations, like the Ujamaa Freedom Market (made possible due to the Women’s […]
How does Asheville, one of the busiest tourist hubs in the state — a place where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a chef or a farmer — have so many people lacking access to good food or outright going to bed hungry?
Local worker-owned mobile produce vendor Ujamaa Freedom Market was among 12 nonprofit organizations in the Southeast tapped to receive grants from Whole Foods Market’s Whole Cities Foundation.
The USDA has identified several areas in WNC, and Asheville, as places without access to healthy, affordable food. But three different mobile food markets are aiming to launch this year — reducing the distance between healthy foods and communities in need.
Over 75 community members attended Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council (ABFPC) meeting on Wednesday evening, April 2 to discuss initiatives for 2014.
Since Xpress featured Ujamaa Freedom Market in the September Women in Business issue, project organizers have launched a campaign on crowd-funding site GoFundMe. So far, they’ve raised 20 percent of their goal.
In Asheville’s thirst for sustainability, it's easy to forget that a third of the city's workers are low-wage, and in some neighborhoods, survival is the top priority.
In Asheville’s thirst for sustainability, it's easy to forget that a third of the city's workers are low-wage, and in some neighborhoods, survival is the top priority.
