The Farmplate Blog

A new study called the 2012 Strolling of the Heifers Locavore Index, which uses USDA and census figures to rate states on their commitment to local food, confirms what Vermonters already know. In the Green Mountain State, the local food movement is alive - and thriving.

Strolling of the Heifers is based in Vermont, which adds a small grain of salt to the findings. But it’s hard to find any inconsistency in the state’s 99 farmers markets and 164 CSAs, with a population of fewer than 622,000. Iowa, Montana, Maine and Hawaii join Vermont in the top five. Florida was last in the ranking.

Read on for more from the AP in the Burlington Free Press.

“A committed ‘locavore,’ Robin McDermott once struggled to stock her kitchen with food grown within 100 miles of her Vermont home. She once drove 70 miles to buy beans and ordered a bulk shipment of oats from the neighboring Canadian province of Quebec.

Six years later, she doesn't travel far: She can buy chickens at the farmers market, local farms grow a wider range of produce, and her grocery store stocks meat, cheese and even flour produced in the area. A bakery in a nearby town sells bread made from Vermont grains, and she's found a place to buy locally made sunflower oil…”

Read more here > 

Image courtesy of the State of Vermont.