WSET.com - ABC13Buy Fresh Buy Local Chapter Could Come to Central VA

Reporter: Rachel Schaerr | Videographer: Jamon Haskins

Farmville, VA - You may have heard of movements to buy and eat locally grown foods. Now, one particular movement is gaining momentum in Central Virginia.

Buy Fresh Buy Local is a nationally-recognized marketing campaign that helps communities rebuild their local food systems and promote agriculture. There's a move to bring a chapter to 11 counties - including Appomattox, Charlotte and Halifax. It costs $2,500 up front and $500 a year, but supporters say the benefits would be huge.

In 2004, Steve Ault left the corporate world behind for a 94-acre farm straddling Prince Edward and Charlotte Counties.

"We try to raise everything as naturally as possible," he says after pointing to the baby lambs less than a day old.

The only problem, he says there hasn't bee much demand here for local produce, meaning he often travels to Richmond to sell his food.

"I have a few neighbors who do buy from me once in a while, but other than that not much at all," Ault said.

Eric Bowen is spearheading the effort to market eleven counties in Central and Southside Virginia under the Buy Fresh, Buy Local brand.

"What we spend on our food in the current food chain, roughly 15 and a half cents goes to a producer somewhere. The rest of that money, that dollar bill is tied up in distribution, transportation, packaging, marketing, brokering, etc.," said Bowen from the Prince Edward County Extension Office where he works as an agent.

He says the region can benefit - in better health and a better economy. If each household spent $10 of their weekly food budget on local produce, he says it would generate roughly $45 million for the area.

The nonprofit, Foodroutes.org will help the chapter develop a marketing strategy tailored to their specific needs.

Steve Ault is already a believer.

"The obesity, the cancers, all this stuff, it's all going back to what you stick in your mouth," he said.

The other eight chapters around the state of Virginia have seen a great amount of success, added Bowen.

"It's just one more avenue for local producers to be able to market and to get the information out there that they exist," he said.

There's a public hearing from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Southside VA Community College's Workforce Development Center, John H. Daniel Campus, 200 Daniel Road, Keysville, VA.

For more information you can call Eric Bowen at (434) 392-4245 or email bowen@vt.edu.