Farm to Fork Photo Project!

Maria here in Williamson, WV. This Saturday, we had our first annual Farm to Fork Photo Workshop. I think this idea is so neat that I just had to share.

A few months ago we received funding from the Appalachia FoodShed Project for our proposal for a Farm to Fork Photo Initiative. For this project, we received funding to hiring three agriculture students from Tug Valley High School to work with our community gardens and local farmers this season. Throughout the summer they will be asked to document their experience by taking photographs. At the end, they will compile a photo story that they will share with their peers and the community at an end of the season Farm to Fork dinner. This will be a great opportunity for youth to first learn how to farm, and then for them to create an artistic piece and share their work with others.

We had ten students that applied for the position which was very exciting for us!

On Saturday, as part of a launch event, we had a Farm to Fork Photography workshop. Roger May from North Carolina traveled to Williamson for the event. Roger is a professional photographer that is from Mingo County, but has since moved to North Carolina. Roger has had his work published in the National Geographic and Oxford American, and has most recently been looking at a crowd sourced photo project, Looking at Appalachia (http://lookingatappalachia.org/)

This will be the first summer that we will be working with paid AGRICULTURE interns, and the first time I have seen a photography workshop in Williamson. We started the workshop at the local high school, where people young and old came to learn about taking pictures: specifically on the farm. After the workshop we took photographs of Tug Valley High School’s new greenhouse, chickens and pigs. After that, we traveled to a local honey farm where participants had the chance to hone in on their skills. Overall a great event and looking forward to getting our film developed (we used old fuji film disposable cameras).

Will definitely share the photographs after they are developed!