On January 21, Norman’s Farm Market attended Maryland Department of Agriculture’s 2010 Buyer-Grower Meeting in Annapolis. We had a blast meeting all the producers and sampling their products. Also it was great catching up with many of the key players in the local foods movement. Kate Mason, the agricultural marketing specialist for Maryland’s Department of Agriculture, did a great job of organizing the event. She also puts together many other events geared towards helping Maryland’s producers develop a customer base. The 2010 Buyer-Grower Meeting was attended by vegetable farms, fruit orchards, meat & dairy farms, seafood producers, wineries, and more. Area chefs, some larger buyers such as Wegman’s & Wholefoods, and of course Maryland’s premier local food advocate Norman’s Farm Market attended the meeting as prospective buyers.
The first wall of the auditorium was lined with seafood producers and watermen from the Chesapeake Bay. We spoke to Ernie Nichols of Uncle Ernie’s Tangier Sound Oysters and sampled his delicious Oysters. Ernie’s mission statement is, “To provide a sustainable source of excellent Tangier Sound oysters while working to help restore the wild oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay.” His farm provides literally billions of disease resistant oyster larvae to help restore the bay’s population. This is important because oysters function as living filters and play an important role restoring the ecosystem of the bay.
Next we spoke to Mike Koch and Pablo Solanet of Firefly Farms in Maryland’s Allegheny plateau. We were pleased to discover that Mike & Pablo frequent our Chevy Chase location and we loved their artisan goat cheeses. As we sampled their cheeses we discussed our recent trip to Wisp which is not far from their farm. FireFly farms is committed to “…sustainable agriculture and the preservation of small family farms, respect for the environment, humane treatment of animals, and world class cheese!” We discussed our dairy CSA program with the possibility of working together in the future. They would be a great addition to our program with such excellent quality cheese and sustainable values.
It is always great catching up with Renee Catacalos, a freelance writer and consultant specializing in the farm to table movement and formerly the publisher and editor of Edible Chesapeake. Currently Renee maintains her own blog. Aside from giving us some great ideas and feedback concerning Norman’s Farm Market, Renee also told us about the 2010 Future Harvest, Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA) Conference she had recently attended.
After spending a few hours meeting and speaking with many more producers and local food advocates we headed home. All in all, we found our excursion to Annapolis for the 2010 Buyer Grower meeting to be productive and fruitful.
