Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP)

Help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.

A region where local food is the default choice — where strong farms drive thriving local food economies, healthy communities value farming, the food system builds local wealth, strengthens communities, supports health and wellness, sustains the environment, ensures fair living wages for food producers, and children learn about food from parents, teachers, and local farms rather than advertisers.

ASAP was born in 1995 as a grassroots community response to the anticipated collapse of the tobacco industry in Southern Appalachia. For generations, small mountain farms had depended on tobacco as their economic anchor. When federal support began to erode — culminating in the 2004 tobacco buyout — these farms faced an existential crisis.

A coalition of community leaders, farmers, and advocates came together to ask a fundamental question: what comes next? The answer was local food. ASAP officially incorporated as a nonprofit in 2002 and launched the Local Food Campaign in 2000, creating the now-iconic bumper sticker message "Local Food: Thousands of miles fresher!" What began as a directory of 58 farms has grown into a regional movement connecting more than 1,200 farms and food businesses to consumers, restaurants, schools, and healthcare providers across the Southern Appalachian region.

Today, ASAP operates programs spanning farmer support, consumer education, food access, farm-to-school initiatives, and the Appalachian Grown certification — a branding program that now includes over 1,300 farms and businesses. The organization manages the year-round Asheville City Market and supports over 100 farmers markets across the region.

Health-conscious, values-driven consumers ages 25–65 (skewing slightly female), middle to upper-middle income, across Western North Carolina and the broader Southern Appalachian region who shop farmers markets, subscribe to CSAs, and seek out local food. They care where their food comes from and how it's produced, want to support local farms and the regional economy, and value sustainability — looking to easily find genuinely local farms and food producers and participate in a food system that aligns with their values.