I hope you are feeling rejuvenated by the holiday break and inspired by the start of the New Year!  Kicking off 2017 is something I have been looking forward to because I have specific goals I am working toward and I’m quite excited to be kicking off the process of reaching them. 

I love to rely on a milestone date like a birthday, an anniversary or a New Year to offer me that annual opportunity to review, renew and re-up specific goals and relationships that shape my life, such as my  relationship to self, to others, to a job or business, or something even larger in the community or the world.

Making plans for the New Year’s “look ahead” depends largely on reviewing the milestones from the year prior. Other local food stakeholders in the area have spent some time with me re-capping the exciting momentum they’ve accomplished in 2016, a momentum that helps us all roll into 2017 ablaze with promise for the future of local food in Polk County.

Top 10 local food community milestones for 2016:

1. Growing Rural Opportunities, or GRO, a new Polk County nonprofit, launched. GRO and NC Community Garden Partners sponsored a Community Garden Workshop Day, and GRO received the Polk County Bookmobile for a mobile farmers market.

2. The Polk County Office of Agricultural Economic Development continued to bring people together in meaningful ways as the public emblem of our local food community. They enjoyed their seventh year of receiving AmeriCorps volunteer support with an added AmeriCorps member for trails.

Also, GRO and Agricultural Economic Development doubled the size of the county’s tool share co-operative. Agricultural Economic Development hosted its fifth annual PolkFresh Farm Tour and enjoyed its sixth year of Friends of Ag Breakfasts.

Agricultural Economic Development’s core program is area farmers markets. Farmers markets in Polk County began using text messages to communicate with customers through their partnership with GRO which also assisted in the Saluda Farmers Market accepting EBT/food stamps. Tryon Farmers Market moved to Harmon Field.

3. Local food stakeholders convened via the USDA to work on strengthening agriculture as an economic development goal for the Isothermal region (Polk, McDowell, Rutherford, and Cleveland counties). This regional plan is currently under review by USDA as a high quality plan, and if so designated, will position the region for priority funding. Further convenings of agriculture and local food stakeholders are necessary in order to complete the evaluation measures and action steps required by each strategy.

4. Slow Food Asheville-Foothills partnered with GRO to distribute heritage bean seeds (Cherokee trail of tears pole bean) to local farmers and gardeners of Polk County via the Mill Spring Agricultural Center. The purpose of the Heritage Food Project is to expand knowledge and availability of heritage varieties and to encourage seed saving and preservation of these historical foods in our current food system.

5. The Community’s Kitchen, Polk County’s first rent-by-the-hour commercial kitchen with an emphasis on incubating local food entrepreneurs who want to value-add, manufacture, or cater fresh foods to the community, saw a heightened request for certified kitchen support as it reached a record number of daily and weekly users.

6. Polk County Cooperative Extension continued its 40 year tradition of offering well adapted blueberry, raspberry and strawberry plants for sale to encourage local fruit production while also continuing to visit homes and farms to diagnose growing problems and provide solutions that maximize yields and reduce negative environmental impacts.

Vegetable, soil and other horticultural classes were held and the office moved to 79 Carmel Lane, Columbus with plenty of acreage to launch this year’s vegetable variety trial farm. These trials will be held to university research standards and will be focused on selection of the best varieties for our local small farmers to market in the local area with minimal inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers.

The Polk County Extension and county library collaborated in the creation of a monthly cookbook club with monthly meetings focusing on a particular theme (Italian, Southern, Holiday, etc.). Participants are encouraged to bring a dish to share and when possible use local ingredients. It’s a lunchtime celebration of food, education and socialization. In 2017, the club meetings will meet the third Thursday of the month at noon.

7. Polk County’s first high-density apple orchard was planted in April 2016 at TK Family Farm. It consists of 1,150 trees on less than an acre with five varieties: Pink Lady, Gala, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and Evercrisp (a cross between Fuji and Honeycrisp). They expect to have their first crop of apples in 2017 and at peak production expect around 1,000 bushels. This orchard represents cutting edge technology in orchard management and represents a major milestone for TK Family Farm. Fall harvest agritourism hours will be open to the public.

8. Area restaurants gave their nod to local, including Stone Soup in Landrum. It expanded the restaurant to include a market focusing on local grown and raised with organic chicken and pork from Past
U R Time Farm, Red Wattle Pork and TK Family Farm. GRO also did the herb garden at the restaurant.

9. Manna Cabanna, a year-round local multi-farm CSA program, opened a local foods grab and go bodega and indoor farmers market in downtown Tryon to a grateful community. The market is designed to represent any and all interested local food businesses, farmers, ranchers, wild-harvesters, beekeepers, herbalists, flower growers and many more.

10. You, the consumers! You drive the market. You bring the demand. You strengthen your life and the lives of your neighbors when you ask, “Where does my food come from?” and when you answer, “From Polk County!” 

Impressive as this list is, it just scratches the surface. There are dozens of other ongoing efforts and food entrepreneurship that have grown in important ways this year. Send them to info@mannacabanna.com and I will make them part of another In Good Taste column throughout this year, or share your favorite personal or community food milestones with me on Facebook (search for mannacabanna) so we can all celebrate the year past and the year ahead together.