At Urban Rural Nexus, Food Distributor in Colorado Makes Connections that Grow the Local Food Marketplace

September 24, 2013 | Melonie Magruder

To Elizabeth Mozer, owner/operator of Loco Foods distribution in Ft. Collins, Colorado, it’s all about connections.

Back when she was running the Lyric Cinema Café, she made a conscious choice to make sure her café was stocked with the same kinds of foods she would pack for her children’s lunches – something fresh, healthful and, most importantly, local.

“We were sort of a glorified concession stand,” Mozer said. “But we believe in supporting our local farmers. And where we’re located, somewhere between urban and rural, you can find a lot of farms.” Read More

The Santa Monica Farmers Market – Where Every Farmer Has a Story to Tell and Bounty to Share

September 19, 2013 | Melonie Magruder

The Santa Monica Farmers Market is celebrated throughout metro Los Angeles as perhaps the best, most family-friendly and most diverse of markets in the county. Launched in July, 1981, the beachside town’s farmers market began with a mere 23 vendors. Since then, it has grown to include some 85 farmers from as far north as the Oregon border all the way down to Tijuana, and has expanded to run four days a week in three different locations across the city.

Laura Avery has been running the market almost since its inception and said she has been feeding her own family, her children and her grandchildren on the bounty found in the colorful market stalls.

“We started this market through a program then administered through the California Food and Agriculture Department, and they went out and recruited farmers for us,” Avery said. “It’s thanks to Jerry Brown, who was governor then and who passed the Retail Marketing Act that allowed us to operate, even though all the big retailers and shippers were totally against it.” Read More

Beylik Family Farms’ Embrace of Hydroponics Proves Out-of-Box Thinking Can Sustain Multi-Generational Farm

September 5, 2013 | Melonie Magruder

Beylik Family Farms has proved that out-of-the-box thinking on agriculture can be rewarded with a multi-generational business model – one that keeps the family on the farm without even getting their hands dirty.

“Back in 1971, hydroponics were not a proven technology,” current family farmer Scott Beylik said. “We are light years away now from how we started out. And we get better yields than ever.”

Beylik’s dad was an aerospace engineer and his grandfather was a plant biology teacher at Culver City High School back in the early 70s when they got an idea to work for themselves. Grandpa Beylik researched growing hydroponically in an industry that couldn’t imagine year-round greenhouse production with no dirt involved. Read More

Long Beach, CA Urban Farm Shows Success of New Food Movement Will Come from Lots of Small Efforts

August 29, 2013 | Melonie Magruder

Thirty-eight years ago, before he discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and became an advocate for sustainable oceans and built a boat out of plastic bottles to sail to Hawaii, just to make a point about ocean pollution, Charles Moore had a little farm.

On a 2,000 square foot plot smack in the middle of Long Beach, with an upholstery shop on one side and an auto body repair clinic on the other, Moore started growing vegetables and fruits so he could make lunch for his employees in his own furniture repair shop. From that effort, Gladys Avenue Urban Farm was born. Read More