ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 13, 2011) \u2013 This holiday season, consider your Maryland agriculture options when purchasing gifts.\u00a0 Maryland farmers and specialty food and beverage producers offer a wide range of items to enjoy.\u00a0 Depending on individual tastes, options include a bottle of wine, local artisan cheese, fresh meats, plants, and much more.\u00a0 For a gift that keeps on giving, why not give a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) membership.\u00a0 A year\u2019s share offers months of weekly produce from a Maryland farm. Other local gift ideas involve putting together a gift basket of fresh produce from farmer\u2019s markets or purchasing a gift certificate to a farm bed and breakfast.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaryland farmers offer a full range of delicious products that will brighten anyone\u2019s holiday,\u201d said Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance. \u201cBuying locally grown and produced food is not only a unique gift idea, but also helps to support our family farmers and local economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the most recent agricultural census completed in 2007 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 12,549 farms marketing products through CSA programs in the United States and 161 in Maryland.\u00a0 In addition, in the United States there were 78,418 farms producing and selling value-added products, with 683 in Maryland.<\/p>\n
To find Maryland agriculture products to give as gifts, visit the \u201cFind Me Local\u201d section of www.marylandsbest.net<\/a>.\u00a0 The web site, which is serviced by the Maryland Department of Agriculture\u2019s Office of Marketing, lists numerous Maryland farmers and specialty food and beverage producers.\u00a0 Also check out the video profile of Talbot County\u2019s Chapel Creamery, one of the state\u2019s best producers of artisanal cheeses.<\/p>\n # # #<\/p>\n Follow MDA on Twitter @MdAgDept<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 13, 2011) \u2013 This holiday season, consider your Maryland agriculture options when purchasing gifts.\u00a0 Maryland farmers and specialty food and beverage producers offer a wide range of items to enjoy.\u00a0 Depending on individual tastes, options include a bottle of wine, local artisan cheese, fresh meats, plants, and much more.\u00a0 For a gift Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-buy-local-cookout"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}