Friday, August 3, 2012
Arcadia Farm holds mobile market Thursdays at the South County Center and Saturdays at Woodlawn Plantation.
When Ed Avalos was a boy in New Mexico, an old man regularly visited the streets of Las Cruces with a horse-drawn wagon, bringing seasonal produce. “His farm was on the outskirts of town, so every morning he’d load up and go through the neighborhoods,” Avalos said. “And these were all, what we would call today, underserved communities. And he would bring fresh, locally grown produce to the communities.” Today, Avalos is undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his interest in mobile markets has not waned. Avalos stopped by the South County Center in Mount Vernon Thursday to talk with employees of Arcadia Farm's mobile market and learn how the market operates. “When they told me about a…
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Ed Avalos, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, will visit the Mobile Market at South County Center Thursday afternoon.
A local farmers' market that helps the needy is getting some federal attention. Ed Avalos, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, will visit the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture’s Mobile Market stop at the South County Center Thursday afternoon. Avalos will visit the popular mobile farmers' market to learn about strategies for developing farmer’s markets in underserved communities and exploring the impact of the Bonus Dollars program on nutrition benefit redemption at farmer’s markets. The Mobile Market offers produce at below-market rates for those in need. Arcadia accepts SNAP benefits, WIC (Women, Infant and Children checks), and Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program checks, and offers a “Bonus …
Friday, March 23, 2012
Grocery store chains have recently spoken out on their ground beef standards. Some are pulling the lean finely textured beef, others never carried it.
Nationally, there has been wildfire around grocery stores that carry Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB) after a former United States Department of Agriculture scientist said that 70 percent “of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contains something he calls 'pink slime,'" according to an ABC report. LFTB, the hot topic of late, is "waste" meat and fat that is often ground and turned into processed meat products or combined with higher quality meat to make low-fat ground beef. Because beef trim is often filled with E. Coli and salmonella, it's treated with ammonium hydroxide, creating "pink slime," a term coined by some scientists who claim the resulting product "isn't really beef." Grocery stores are now rolling out releases making …
UCM Alexandria
5:04 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
This is a great article about a great partnership that is helping to build a stronger community. Thanks to the Arcadia Mobile Farmers' Market, many of the low-income families served by my agency United Community Ministries (UCM) are able to purchase quality, fresh produce and to stretch their SNAP dollars farther! Families in need in southeastern Fairfax County come to UCM for food, for housing … more ›