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Here are some frequently asked questions:
- Are there membership fees?
- Will I have to buy vegetables I don't want?
- How do I order?
- When do I pay?
- When and Where do I pick up my order?
- Why Support Locally Grown?
- How can I sell through this market?
- Oh no! I forgot to pickup my order! Now what?
- Why are some of your products labelled "organic" and others are not?
And here are some answers:
Are there membership fees?
To help us provide farm tours, educational programs, and to help us with our overhead costs, we ask that you pay an annual fee of $25 per household for one calendar year. You are welcome to try us for two orders before officially becoming members.
Will I have to buy vegetables I don't want?
Unlike some co-ops, buying clubs, or CSAs where everyone gets the same box of stuff (and you don’t know what you’re getting until you get it), with Locally Grown you get to order what you want, in the quantities that you want, from the farms that you want. The weekly email lists the produce, milled products, fresh flowers, and artisan goods available that week, and you can browse the items on this website before you place your order.
How do I order?
Each Sunday evening, a list of available products is sent to all of our registered customers by e-mail. Customers must place their order for the week no later than Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Orders can be placed here on our website. Ordering through this web site is our preferred method as it is designed to reduce the amount of time it takes us to process orders as well as provide you with detailed information about our products.
When and Where do I pick up my order?
From 4:30 until 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays, customers can pick-up their produce at The Busch Center on Auburn Drive which is located behind the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at 450 E. Thach Ave., Auburn.
Why Support Locally Grown?
Enhance your local economy: By purchasing produce and other items from local growers you are providing stability to your local economy through the support of local businesses.
Save natural resources: Buying locally makes you an invaluable link in the process of saving resources such as fossil fuels and packaging materials. Also, we are right here in your community so the expense of transportation and delivery is kept to a minimum.
Provide learning opportunities: Locally Grown supporters provide member growers the means to help educate our community about the importance of sustainable agriculture.
Supporting a way of life: The number of small farms in the United States has decreased dramatically in the last decade. Please help us preserve an honest and worthy means of making a living.
We believe that small, diverse, family-owned farms contribute to society’s overall health.
How can I sell through this market?
If you’ve already created a customer account here, simply go to Our Growers and click on ‘Join this Market’. This will add you to our system and our market managers will contact you with the next step. We charge 15% of your overall sales as a market fee. Like at a traditional farmers’ market, you do get to set your own prices and list your items as you wish. Contact jan at sunbrightfarm@gmail.com if you want more information.
Oh no! I forgot to pickup my order! Now what?
Well, I’m sorry we missed you.
About a half hour before we pack up to go home, we’ll call you if you haven’t come yet, using the phone number you tied to your account. If you have a cell phone, use that number!
Most times, we get an answering machine, so if we haven’t reached you when it’s time to go, we’ll try again.
If we still haven’t been able to reach you, your items will be donated or given away! We do not have a means to keep items until the next week, or to deliver them to you. If we were able to reach you on the phone, we may be able to work out an arrangement, but otherwise, your items will be donated or given away!
Since the growers harvested just for you, and since we paid the growers on your behalf when they brought them to our market, you are still responsible for paying for items, even if you do not pick them up.
Why are some of your products labelled "organic" and others are not?
First off, no “conventional” growers are allowed to sell through our market. Everything sold here is grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Everything here could be sold as “organic”, but many growers choose not to.
To use the word “organic”, a grower must register through the USDA and keep up with a tremendous amount of paperwork. The process is very expensive and intensive, and certainly favors the larger factory farms over the small family farm.
The state of Georgia has seen that, and has given the small producer who sells only a few thousand dollars a year of produce a means to register with the state department of agriculture. A few of our growers have gone that route, and they can legally use the word “organic” in Georgia.
Another system is “Certified Naturally Grown”. This nation-wide program seeks to correct the problems with the USDA certification system. The standards are just as strict (and in some cases, more so) as the USDA Organic program, but there is no cost to become certified. There is still some paperwork, but not as much. More importantly, the growers in the program inspect each other, rather than relying on an outside for-profit certifying agency. Several of our growers have gone this route.
Finally, a few growers are not certified by anyone but still use organic sustainable methods on their farms.
To find out more about our growers, and to see what certification, if any, they have, take a look at our Growers page.
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