Buy Local for the Holidays and Support Your Local Economy

Maryland farmers along with specialty food and beverage producers offer a wide range of  items to consider when purchasing gifts this holiday season. Options include Maryland wine, local cheese, fresh meats, yarn, plants, and more. The Maryland Department of Agriculture’sMaryland’s Best website has a searchable database that helps you find Maryland farms, agricultural products, wineries (and more) near you. Buying local gift and food products also helps to reduce or eliminate manufactured packaging and energy used for shipping – helping to lessen greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

“Maryland farmers offer a full range of unique and delicious products that will brighten anyone’s holiday,” said Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance. “Locally grown and produced food and wine are not only great gifts, but buying local is good for the environment and helps keep our family farmers profitable and keeps money circulating in our local communities. Buying local is good for all of us.”

For a gift that keeps on giving, consider giving your friends and family a membership in Community Supported Agriculture. CSA members pay an upfront subscription fee to a farmer in return for a share of the season’s harvest, which is usually fresh produce right off the farm provided weekly. Subscriptions typically fill up fast. To find a CSA farm near you, see: www.MarylandsBest.net (According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent Census of Agriculture, 12,549 farms in the United States – 161 in Maryland – market products through CSA programs).

If you haven’t selected a Christmas tree yet, consider a choose-and-cut or retail operation that sells Maryland-grown trees. The Maryland Christmas Tree Association has a directory of Choose & Cut Farms that lists dozens of places across the state where families can harvest their own Christmas trees.

According to USDA, 78,418 farms (683 of them in Maryland) produce and sell value-added products. To find Maryland agriculture products, visit the “Find Me Local” section of www.marylandsbest.net, which is serviced by MDA’s Office of Marketing.