Farm forum set for March 31 in Carthage

Tennessee’s 4th Annual Farmers Market Forum will be held March 31 at Smith County Agriculture Complex in Carthage. The event’s focus is opportunities and requirements for producers who plan to sell their farm products directly to the consumer.
The free event is sponsored by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. Registration for the day’s program, which includes lunch, opens at 8 a.m. The program will be from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
“When a producer sells a product right off the farm or at a local farmers market — and especially when he adds value to that product before he sells it — there’s an opportunity to grab a much bigger piece of the food dollar than he gets when those products are processed, packaged and marketed by other people,” says Laura Fortune, farmers market specialist with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.
The forum will feature several speakers from TDA’s Regulatory Services Division, including John Sanford and Buddy Woodson, administrators for the state’s food and dairy programs, and Bob Williams, administrator for Weights and Measures.
Other speakers include Megan Bruch, U.T. Center for Profitable Agriculture; Peggy Marchetti, Tennessee Farmers Market Association; and Tiffany Mullins, Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation.
Anyone interested in participating is encouraged to pre-register by contacting Fortune at (615) 837-5349 or Laura.Fortune@state.tn.us.
For more information, visit www.picktnproducts.org.
Published in The Messenger 3.25.08

Print