Meet the people behind the food you buy at your local grocery store and produce stands on Richmond’s Farm Tour this weekend

by | Sep 30, 2015 | POLITICS

Hear about where your food is sourced and shakes the very hands that feed you with Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market Second Annual Rich

Hear about where your food is sourced and shakes the very hands that feed you with Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market Second Annual Richmond Farm Tour this weekend.

The organic grocery store, along with the Virginia Association of Biological Farming, are providing the community the chance to get to know their local farmers through a self-guided tour of 21 regional farms.

Attendees will get mini-tours of each farm over the two-day event and hear a little about each farm, what they produce, how their food is grown and even purchase food and other items that the farmers are growing and/or making on their farms.

“Volunteers will be at each farm to welcome you upon your arrival and then you can either go on by yourself or grab one of the farmers that will be on the farm that day and they will walk you through a tour,” said Colin Beirne, Ellwood Thompson’s Marketing Director.

Last year Beirne said about 12 farms participated and this year,not only do they have more, but also different types of farms.

“We will have chicken farms as well as produce farms, last year we just had produce farms this year we’ll have some animals in the mix,” Beirne said.

Beirne said that this tour is a great way for Richmonders and people in the community that eat local to hear from local growers and actually see it for themselves.

“More and more of our customers want to know where their food is coming from and how it’s grown,” Beirne said.

There are a quite a few farms on the self-paced tour in Richmond, Henrico and Moseley and they’ve even included Lickinghole Creek in Goochland, the only brewery on the tour.

People will have the opportunity to check out how they make their beer and check out their hops farm. It will also be the brewery’s second anniversary this weekend so stay for that fun and make sure to check out our Tapped column that runs today to see more about that! This farm is really pretty so make sure to include this on your list!

Besides Lickinghole Creek, participating Viginia farms include:31st St. Baptist Church, Amy’s Garden, Avery’s Branch Farms, Barry’s Berries and Jan’s Jams, Black Creek Farm, Broadfork Farm, Byrd Farm, ChiknEGG Cook ‘N Nook, Deer Run Farm of Amelia, Delli Carpini Farm, Elim Springs Farm, Forrest Green Farm, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College Gardens, Keenbell Farm, Renew Richmond Community Farm, Shalom Farms, Tricycle Gardens, Twin Oaks Farm Community, Victory Farms, Virginia Vegetable Company and Waverly Farm.

Families and individuals can bring picnics to the farms and make a day out of the tour.

The VABF has also provided a map on their site so people can navigate around to the farms they want to check out as well as a farm tour guide wich you can find here.

The tour costs $25 per vehicle in advance and $30 per vehicle on the days of the tour. You can order your tickets here or purchase in person at Ellwood’s. The Second Annual Richmond Farm Tour runs Sat. Oct 3 and Sun. Oct. 4 from 1 to 6 pm.

Amy David

Amy David

Amy David was the Web Editor for RVAMag.com from May 2015 until September 2018. She covered craft beer, food, music, art and more. She's been a journalist since 2010 and attended Radford University. She enjoys dogs, beer, tacos, and Bob's Burgers references.




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