Links

Here are some articles and some other sites that might be interesting to friends of the Bedford Farmers’ Market…

For a listing of other farmers’ markets around NH as well as NH-made agricultural product suppliers, check out the NH Department of Agriculture’s site at www.state.nh.us/agric/farmmkt.html.

Beginner Farmers of NH is an effort to help support and encourage individuals wishing to start farming or gardening and to help and support people who are currently farming. Their site includes a good resource listing at www.beginnerfarmers.org.

NHmade.com/NHstories.com provide information on NH-made products. www.nhmade.com.

The Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) is a non-profit organization of nearly 4,000 farmers, gardeners and consumers working to promote healthy food, organic farming practices and a cleaner environment. NOFA has chapters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. www.nofa.org

The USDA lists farmers’ markets around the nation on its site at www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets. Or you can reach them at (800) 384-8704.

LocalHarvest is a not-for-profit venture to sprout and grow a definitive and reliable “living” public directory of small farms nationwide. www.localharvest.org and (831) 466-0700
The Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association was formed in the U.S. in 1938. Biodynamics is the oldest, non-chemical agricultural movement and pre-dates organic agriculture by some 20 years. The Association supports regional, grass-roots membership associations and funds more formal research and training institutions. Biodynamics also supports Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). www.biodynamics.com

The American Farmland Trust (AFT) works to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. www.farmland.org

The Farmland Information Library provides statistics on agriculture by state. New Hampshire data, including an extensive listing of links are available at: farmlandinfo.org/fic/states/new_hampshire.html.

Portsmouth-based Sustainable Harvest has helped more than 680 farming families in Central America to adopt environmentally-friendly farming methods. www.sustainableharvest.org.

“An author of eight cookbooks and owner of an eatery named ‘Best Restaurant in America’ by Gourmet magazine might be satisfied to sit back and sip a Pellegrino. But Alice Waters, one of the best-known champions of locally grown, fresh food, has bigger plans: She hopes to change the role food plays in our culture. The Berkeley, California, restaurateur promotes farmers’ markets and ’slow food’.” Read more in the November/December 2004 issue of Sierra Magazine.

For a more activist approach, visit The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), a grassroots non-profit public interest organization which deals with focuses on issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, corporate accountability, and environmental sustainability. Visit their site at www.organicconsumers.org.