Chesterhill Produce Auction a Rural Appalachia Case Story

"Chesterhill Produce Auction, A Rural Appalachia Case Story," has been completed by the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University. This document is a product of Rural Actions' collaborative Sustainable Agriculture work with the Central Appalachian Network (CAN)funded by the Ford Foundation, and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. CAN, a collaborative made up of Rural Action and Acenet in Ohio, along with groups from Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, is interested in sharing "practical knowledge" from regional projects. The CPA case story is one of these efforts.

Based on extensive interviews with a cross section of stakeholders, this document takes a clear eyed, well documented look at the first six years of the CPA with the social and economic contexts of the project well highlighted. Anyone with an interest in local food systems or rural development will find this document useful in revealing the confluence of events necessary to start and hold a project of this nature together.

With the growing interest in local food as an economic driver, along with an increasing awareness of Ohio's large Anabaptist population and its positive impact on our rural economies, this is a very timely document. Edited by Robin Lindquist-Grantz it includes timelines of the project, as well as lessons learned, and delves deeply into the details of the operations of the CPA which makes for very interesting reading. A map created by Cartographer Matt Trainer of the Voinovich School shows where the CPA food is coming from and going to and helps to illustrate the wide spread draw of this rural food destination. Beautiful photographs by Christina Baird of Ohio University set off the interesting text.

Click here to download a copy of this case story. For more information contact Tom Redfern at tomr@ruralaction.org