Conway Locally Grown

[Cody Hopkins]

Greetings from the muggy south-

My partner (Andrea) and I started running an online farmers market (Conway.LocallyGrown.net) in Conway, AR this spring. In short, the program allows farmers/artisans to list their items online and consumers/members to shop these local products online. It is a lot like shopping at Amazon.com, but on a slightly more local scale. At the end of the week, farmers/artisans deliver their products to a central drop off point in Conway and the customers pick up their orders. The program is both user friendly and convenient for both farmers and consumers. For the farmers, they know what they've sold before they harvest and they save time by just having to drop off their orders (Andrea and I run the drop off). For the customers, they can do their shopping from home and unlike a CSA, they get exactly what they ordered. I think this program is very similar to the Idaho's Bounty program but just on a smaller, city wide, scale. All of the products being sold through our market have to be produced within a 150 miles of Conway without the use of synthetic herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. As it stands, all of the products are produced within about 75 miles of Conway. Since we started running the program in May, we've had six producers (a few more are coming on line soon) and 150 customer sign up. We've created a buzz around Conway so much so that the local paper has already done an article on the market:

www.thecabin.net/stories/062208/bus_0622080002.shtml.

The Locally Grown program was created by a farmer/programer in Athens, GA. He allows individuals or groups to use the program, which he hosts, for a small percentage of gross sales. Conway Locally Grown is the only Locally Grown Market in Arkansas and is 1 of 26 in the U.S.

In the near future, we hope to facilitate a couple educational events, such as a Conway Locally Grown dinner series and/or a series of farm tours.

Hope this finds you all well,

Cody

[Bob Jonas]

Hey Cody
Congratulations on organizing and implementing Conway Locally Grown! Sarah, Jenna and I can attest that online local food markets are an evolution beyond CSA's relative to customer satisfaction. Idaho's Bounty, our local online service, is growing rapidly, displacing our former CSA and is a fine compliment to our weekly farmer markets. Bringing producers and consumers together at celebratory dinners is a hit too and completes the connection between consumers and locally grown food. Hurrah!