Vote With Your Fork

VOTE WITH YOUR FORK

Hi, everyone! This is a new campaign that I am starting. More information will be posted soon, but, essentially, I am encouraging people to support small-scale farmers by purchasing their produce from them instead of the grocery store (which supports industrialized, large-scale agribusinesses). By doing this, we stimulate the local economy, promote agricultural sustainability, and ensure a trustworthy relationship between the farmer and the consumer. Join us by following The Southern Kitchen and raising awareness of the need for local farmers.

Here are a list of farmers' markets who are grower-only, meaning that farmers can only sell what they produce:

Culpeper Downtown Farmers' Market

Clarendon Farmer' Market

Thursday Manassas Farmers' Market

USDA Farmers' Market

Here is a list of other farmers' markets that allow vendors to sell items that are not their own:

Gordon Road Farmers' Market

Fredericksburg Farmers' Market

North Stafford Farmers' Market



Of course, the only way to get fresher produce than that you can find at a farmers' market is to grow it yourself. 

When a farmer has to raise his price on vegetables, it is due to the increase in prices of gasoline, seed, fertilizer, equipment--the list goes on and on. Farmers take it personally when customers ask them why prices are so high. Because the grocery store's prices have not changed, this means that they are importing their produce from other locations (again, from who knows where) and selling it to you. You don't know where that produce came from, who has touched it already, how long it has been in a refrigerator, or how it was grown. Local, small-scale farmers, on the other hand, can tell you exactly what happened to get the produce from the ground to your table, because they raised it themselves.