Why It's Good to Support Your Farmers

In the latest issue of Farming Magazine, Local Roots secretary Jennifer McMullen published an article outlining the history behind Local Roots and explaining the many reasons why the steering committee came together to develop a new year-round farmers' market in the area.

That article caught the eye of Ohio farmer and renowned author, Gene Logsdon (author of books such as The Contrary Farmer and All Flesh Is Grass). Logsdon found himself inspired by steering committee member Jessica Barkheimer's quote that, "No one without land should be without a job." Logsdon's thoughts on the importance of learning how to find sustenance from your land -- and we can support that growing part of our economy -- appear on the OrganicToBe.org web site.

We're pretty tickled! Not only is the word about Local Roots really starting to spread, but we're really at the cusp of a strong grassroots-driven push to return agriculture to its place of importance in local economies -- and to make local communities a little more self-reliant.

As always, we here at Local Roots salute our producer members, current and future. We recognize that you're doing a challenging job, but we appreciate all the effort you give.

And it won't be long before you find our producers' good food at the market!

Weekly Wonderful!

If you're in the Wooster area, be sure to pick up a copy of the Wooster Weekly News on a weekly basis. (Sorry, it doesn't appear to be available online.)

The Wooster Weekly News has graciously offered us a weekly space in the newspaper -- more than an ad, a little less than a column -- for Local Roots specials, announcements, and other useful information. For the first couple of weeks, you'll find information about Local Roots in general and about how to become a member -- just in case you hadn't heard enough from us already!

We're very excited about this generous opportunity and want to thank the Wooster Weekly News for their support!

Going on Record

If you're in the Wooster area, check out today's Daily Record for an article about Local Roots (you can also find it online). Reporter Bryan Schaaf met with 3/4 of the steering committee on Monday to find out more about our plans and to help build up enthusiasm for the market.

We've also gotten a bit of press attention elsewhere:

• Farm and Dairy, which reaches Ohio's farming neighbors, published information from our recent press release last week.
• The Ethicurean, a web site dedicated to supporting sustainable, organic, local, ethical (SOLE) food, posted an article that steering committee member and secretary Jennifer had written as an update on our progress.

We're working to spread the word and to get more people excited about Local Roots!