August 2017 — Molly Riddle is a native of Burnsville, NC and currently attends Brevard College, where she is majoring in Environmental Studies with a focus on Sustainable Agriculture. Her interest in agriculture began when she participated in a 4-H program as a senior in high school. She recently started a student group at Brevard College called BC E.A.T.S, which focuses on getting local food into the school’s cafeteria.
As part of her work with TRACTOR Food and Farms this summer, Molly has been updating farmer profiles by conducting interviews with and taking photos of growers who supply the food hub. She says that her favorite part of her apprenticeship has been “[seeing] all their farms… they are literally the best people in the whole world.” Molly hopes to farm in the Burnsville area one day and has enjoyed learning about local growers’ practices, in addition to understanding the ins-and-outs of running a food hub. “If I am a farmer one day, it will be really nice to understand how a food hub works. And also how hard marketing is for a lot of farmers and how much easier it is to go through something like TRACTOR,” says Molly.
In the short term, Molly hopes to apply her new experience toward furthering the goals of BC E.A.T.S. She has made connections at FreshPoint, another of NCGT’s mentor organizations and a supplier to Brevard’s dining services. Having been impressed by FreshPoint’s local food sourcing, Molly says, “Now that I’ve done this internship I’m less naïve and it’ll be easier to have those conversations [about sourcing local foods].”
This article originally appeared in the August 2017 NC Growing Together Newsletter.