November 2014 – The NCGT Local Food Infrastructure Inventory is a mapped inventory of businesses that serve as intermediary steps in local food supply chains. This includes value-added processors, fresh produce wholesaler/distributors, multi-farm CSA”s, food hubs, community kitchens, incubator farms, and cold storage locations.
“It”s a great guide for new farmers,” says Henderson County extension agent Craig Mauney. He regularly uses the inventory to help farmers locate post-harvest facilities near (and far) from them. “Farmers are thinking about so many things, but they don”t always think about post-harvest storage or processing” of their products, he says.
He recently used the map with a blackberry grower who was looking for cold storage for his berries. Seeing the online casino distance between his farm and the nearest cold-storage facility, the grower decided to build his own cooling unit, which he now shares with 2 smaller growers. “It”s a good decision-making and networking tool,” Mauney says. “The more we all use it, the more useful it will be to farmers in our region.”
Visit the Local Food Infrastructure Inventory and help keep it current by adding a new location or submitting a comment.
This article originally appeared in the October/November 2014 NC Growing Together Newsletter.