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The Cumming Harvest
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This Week

In the past two weeks I’ve talked about the legal organization and considerations behind our market and then the financial operation that keeps everything running. I’ll wrap up this week with a few words about our growers and other market vendors.

First and foremost, let me preface everything by saying the decision to let a new grower into the market is always made by me alone. It is a closed market, and it’s not open to just anyone to sell through. That doesn’t mean we have arbitrary standards, of course, and actually I think I’ve set the bar pretty high. A good number of our growers also go above and beyond to only bring “the best of the best”, and that pushes the de facto standards even higher. Here’s a summary of what it takes to be able to sell through The Cumming Harvest:

All growers must use sustainable practices and never use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. I’ll come back to this later.

All growers can only sell what they themselves have grown, made, or otherwise produced

All growers must be from the greater Cumming area. Right now, this means within about 100 miles

All growers must be willing to be part of our TCH community, and not think of us as just a dumping off point.

All animals raised for meat or eggs must be pastured or sustainably wild-caught

All proper licenses, when required by law, must be obtained

That about covers everything, I think. When I’ve turned down requests to sell through TCH, the grower has clearly not met one or more of those standards. There are a few edge cases that I take on a case by case basis. Let me get back to that first requirement: “sustainable practices”. There is a generally accepted definition of what is “conventional” agriculture, and that includes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and confined and grain-fed animals. Those are easy to exclude. At the other end, there is the USDA Organic Certification and Certified Naturally Grown certification. Few small diversified growers can meet the expense of USDA certification, but a good number of our growers are CNG certified. This program uses the USDA rules as a starting point, made a few things more strict, and uses a system of growers certifying other growers to keep things honest. If a new grower does not have a certification, then I talk to them, get information about them, and visit their farm in person when necessary.

In short: the growers have satisfied my standards, and I personally have approved them for inclusion in TCH. However, I want you to not just take my word for it. Feel free to go on-site yourself and see the farms in action. We have an occasional “meet the grower” table at the pickups so you can talk with the growers yourself face-to-face. We encourage them to take photos for their online photo album, to describe their practices, and to take care with their product listings. We want to facilitate communication between you and them, so when you place an order, they see your name and email address in case they need to clarify a request or offer a substitution, and likewise for most of our growers you can see their contact info when you view their grower profile (while logged into the site) so you can get clarification from them when needed.

I often wrestle with some of those edge cases. Doug’s Wild Alaska Salmon was one such case. The salmon and halibut they sell was caught in Alaska, but Doug and his family live here (well, just over the line in South Carolina). They own their own small boats, and catch the fish themselves. Their practices are certified sustainable by a reputable organization up there, and their products are high quality. They’ve worked out the logistics of getting fish to you every week (by keeping a supply at the market in a freezer they own). Often, the logistics of getting more of a variety of items from there to here on a regular and timely basis is what breaks down, but I hope that over time we’ll be able to expand the items at our market without compromising our community of growers located right here.

Hopefully that explains how our growers get into TCH, what standards they have to meet, and so on. It’s a very important topic, perhaps the most important one for our market, but much of it goes on behind the scenes. I know you’ve put your trust in me, and I take that very seriously, If you’d like to talk with me in person about this or any other aspects of TCH, I’d love to do so. Just pull me aside when you come by to pick up your order.

Pick-Up

Market Location and Pick Up
724 Pilgrim Mill Road, Cumming, GA 30040
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