Farmers Direct Marketing Association Summer Program and Tour

Farm Management Update, June 1997

By Charlie Coale of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech

On July 29, 1997, Virginia's Direct Marketing Association in cooperation with Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Department of Agriculture will sponsor a Summer Tour of five Loudoun and Fairfax Counties direct-to-consumer farm markets. Andrew Gerachis, Loudoun County Extension Agent, and Joan Broome, Operator of Featherbed Farm and a FDMA Board member, serve as hosts and guides for the program and tour. Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. at Fair Oakes Mall, I-66 and Route 50, Parking lot section, Blue--One.

The five tour stops include Fairfax County Farmers Market (host, Jack Baggett), Cox Farms (host, L. Hertz), Chantilly Farms (host, Tim Hutcheson), Fields of Flowers and lunch (host, Roberta East), and Wheatland Vegetable Farms (host, Chip and Susan Planck). The composition of the tour provides participants with the opportunity to observe a tail gate market, a roadside market, a farm market featuring entertainment, a non-traditional farm market, and a producing vegetable farm supplying products for the District of Columbia farm markets, all in operation. The tour will return to Fair Oaks Mall by 4:00 p.m.

Registration for the 1997 FDMA Summer Tour should be sent by July 11, 1997, to ATTN: Cathy Belcher, VDACS, P.O. Box 1163, Richmond, VA 23218. Make checks payable to FDMA, Members @ $25.00 and Non-members @$30.00 which includes bus tour and lunch. Refunds are available if cancellation is made by July 14, 1997.

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