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Mountain Region SUMMIT breakout session

Strengths/Assets

  • Good land/connected to land
  • Golden Leaf Funding & Tobacco Trust fund
  • Respect for heritage
  • Community Colleges, extension and others that are agriculture focused
  • Long traditions of direct marketing
  • Diversity of micro-climates & unique opportunities
  • Products we can grow better/unique, like raspberries

Challenges/Needs

  • Protect tobacco trust fund
  • Geography makes it hard to get together
  • Unsustainable development
  • Price of land (must have a green house)
  • Shifting demographics gentrifying economic change
  • Hard to meet regulations or requirements
  • Small acreage farms (expensive land and hard to meet present use value)

Opportunities & Local Action Ideas

  • Meeting with new WNC Farmers market
  • Tax/fee from second homes to support local agriculture
  • Forest/silva/agriforestry and eco tourism- educate and lobby
  • Scale appropriate support for small farms, specifically change acres required for present use
  • Integrate agriculture in comprehensive land use plans
  • Celebrations of specific cops- not festivals

Things we are going to do

  • Listserv
  • CFS Annual conf Breakfast
  • Meet with new WNC Farmers Market Director

Table Top Strength/Assets

  • Lots of organizations working on same cause
  • Creative numerous farmers
  • Long history of growers
  • Large customer base  - including tourists
  • Ingles, Earthfare, and Green life
  • Blue Ridge Food Ventures
  • Almost no limited industrial agriculture
  • Research stations/city Extension
  • ASAP
  • People are self-reliant
  • Appreciation and respect for nature
  • Family ties and bonds
  • Warmth of interaction
  • Bartering tradition
  • Respect for heritage
  • Water
  • Food awareness
  • Botanicals
  • Basis for diversified economy
  • Buncombe community school
  • Warren Wilson
  • Awareness
  • Orgnizations/Services Existing
  • Community colleges
  • Youthful community
  • Tourism markets
  • Location
  • Unique micro-climate
  • Ag options
  • Blue Ride Food Vendors
  • Traditional growers
  • Culture of the hills including resist and resilience
  • Organic growers FoodTopia

Table Top Challenges/Needs

  • $/Staff for outreach
  • Region underrepresented at state level
  • Very expensive of small farms
  • Present use taxation greater applies only to 10 acres or up
  • Communication / collaboration among organizations
  • Meeting regulations
  • Tourism
  • Access
  • Development
  • Underserved demographic
  • Short-share of resources
  • NGO multiplicity
  • Slopes/erosion
  • Development without environmental criteria
  • 2nd home ownership
  • Limited bottomland
  • Depressed economies in rural areas
  • Difficulty organizing in some communities
  • Youth exodus
  • Insurance costs, tax lands

Table Top Opportunities & Local Action Ideas

  • Mountain tailgate market association/ separate legal entity outside ASAP
  • Food policy council/food working group etc.
  • Engage WNC farmers market new director
  • Additional mobile meat processing unit
  • Region wide celebrations of individual foods
  • Co-op marketing
  • Toolbox retention of working lands
  • Land use plan- comprehensive and including farmland
  • Small farm program focus
  • Take advantage of lull in economy
  • Spread existing model – foundation, mt. landscape
  • Demand nonprofits coordinate and report to eh community
  • Working with youth to instill value of local culture
  • Local economy efforts
  • Education that can enable locals to stay
  • Social marketing
  • Land trusts
  • Eco/local products marketing
  • Agroforestry
  • One-stop shopping for local ag products – like folk arts center
  • Information bartering
  • Non formal education
  • Community gardens for 2nd home communities
  • School kitchens