By Katie Hume, carolinafarmstewards.org
The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and Weaver Street Market Host the 11th Annual Tour Saturday and Sunday, September 23-24, 2017, 1-5pm on both days.
The Eastern Triangle Farm Tour brings families, foodies and friends to the source of their favorite, local foods. This year, the tour includes 26 sustainable, family farms located across the eastern part of the Triangle region — including 5 new farms and 5 delicious meal stops. This year, we are making the tour even more accessible by offering tours in Spanish at 3 farm stops on Saturday.
Every farm on the tour will offer something different to visitors: See the sights of the country, from beautiful old barns to fantastic fields; taste farm-fresh meat, produce and dairy; visit with barnyard animals; and meet the farmers who grow your food! Don’t forget to bring a cooler so you can take home pasture raised meats, artisan cheese, freshly laid eggs, colorful cut flowers, and sustainably grown fruits and veggies.
This year’s tour also features scrumptious meal stops at 5 farms: Carolina Farmhouse Dairy, Prodigal Farm, Meadow Lane Farm, Fat Radish Farm and Rare Earth Farms (Sunday only). There will also be tasty snacks available at Blue Whistler Farm, Bull City Farm, MamaSprings Farm, Ninja Cow Farm, Turtle Mist Farm, and Vollmer Farm.
NEW THIS YEAR: Tours will be offered in Spanish on Saturday at Raleigh City Farm, Ninja Cow Farm and Chickadee Farm, thanks to the support of the Triangle Community Foundation.
“This tour is an amazing opportunity to meet your local farmer and see for yourself how they care for their land and their livestock. Plus, this tour is really fun! Kids will love seeing the baby barn animals and tractors, gardeners will learn about how to increase their own at-home food production, and cooks will enjoy picking up the freshest, most flavorful ingredients for sale at many of the farms on the tour.”
Tour tickets, good for both days, are $30 per vehicle in advance and $35 on the tour weekend. Cycle groups count as one vehicle. Tickets can be purchased online now at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/etft/ or coming soon to Weaver Street Market locations in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, as well as other convenient locations throughout the Triangle.
The tour is self-guided. Choose the farms you want to visit on the interactive map at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/etft/ to plan your tour.
Visit any farm in any order, but plan for 3-4 farms per day. Don’t forget to take a cooler so that you can bring home some of the farm fresh products for sale at many farms. No pets allowed. The tour is rain or shine. Proceeds from the tour support the work of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.
Complete information about the tour and the farms, with interactive maps and driving directions, plus tour tickets are available at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/etft/.
Volunteer for the tour by signing up through SignUp. Volunteers get a car-pass to take the tour on the day they are not volunteering and a limited-edition farm tour tee-shirt!
The event is co-sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) and Weaver Street Market, and proceeds support the work of CFSA. This project received support from the NC ADFP Trust Fund and Triangle Community Foundation’s Support for Places Awareness Program.
The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is on a mission to bring local, organic food to your table from a farmer who shares your values. Our vision is a vibrant, sustainable food system that is good for consumers, good for farmers and farmworkers, and good for the land. See www.carolinafarmstewards.org.
Weaver Street Market is a community-owned grocery with stores in Carrboro, Southern Village and Hillsborough. Weaver Street Market has been supporting local family farms for over twenty years. They are online at www.weaverstreetmarket.coop.
