If you are anything like me, you thoroughly enjoy the taste of fresh in-season food grown right here in Nebraska.

Our great diversity and ability to grow local food seven months out of the year, with the help of hoop and greenhouses, has attracted the attention of many restaurants, grocers, and institutions wanting to source food locally.

Buy Fresh Buy Local Nebraska is working to rebuild local food systems and promote and reconnect producers directly with consumers.

During the past 20-plus years that I’ve been either selling at or managing farmers’ markets, I’ve noticed that man’s love affair with local food has grown in exponential numbers.

More and more individuals are taking an active role in educating themselves about where their food comes from and how and who has grown it for their table.

This heightened awareness and interest in local food is certainly gaining ground here in Nebraska as shown by the rapid growth of farmers’ markets and CSA’s (community supported agriculture) across the state.

You can see the rebuilding of a local food system in grocery stores, co-ops, restaurants and large scale institutions featuring and preparing food grown on local farms and ranches.

Natural and organic food is the fastest growing segment in retail food sales at a consistent rate of 30% per year. Why? The dining public is interested in healthier foods, fresher foods, and heirloom foods, foods that have a story, a history and flavor, but most of all local foods because they want to have a relationship with and know the story behind the farm, the farmer and the foods.

With this desire of consumers to reconnect to their food, to the land and their memories of fresh, delicious, real food served from their parents or grandparents’ garden has emerged a movement to connect consumers in communities throughout the country to local food from farms and ranches they can trust.

Buy Fresh Buy Local provides a network of people who care about where their food comes from and how it is produced.

Fortunately, the agricultural landscape of Nebraska is dotted by small and mid-sized farms that have been in the same families for generations. They have strived to be good stewards of their land offering a diversity of food crops for local consumption and in many cases, they conserve critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, both plant and animal, which give us the scenic landscapes and the rich biodiversity of life we enjoy.

However, many of these farms are giving way to their final crop – single family houses.

Most of the farmers would prefer to stay in farming and to pass the farm on to those who have a passion for the environment and food but they must be able to make a living.

Buy Fresh Buy Local, through local food guides, educational materials and through outreach events, makes it easy for consumers to find and connect with local food from farms they can know and trust and that the food choices consumers make everyday will determine whether we will continue to enjoy our Nebraska heritage and landscape.

With the burgeoning markets here in Nebraska there is a great need for local food producers. The door is standing wide open for those who have a passion for growing food, flowers, trees and shrubs for food, or decorative purposes.

If you have a few acres of land you can put into production and would love to meet the end consumer of your toils in the soil there is opportunity for you to make a nice income. You can start with a small plot or get your neighbors excited about food production and start your own community garden and sell at a farmers’ market.

If you live on acreage there is a great need for small fruits and tree fruit, nuts and legumes.

The floral industry is very interested in Nebraska’s woody plants and fresh cut flowers (wild crafted).

Opportunity for starting your own small farm business in direct market gardening is on the cutting edge of green thinking and ready for you to step into.

As my husband, a former serviceman, reminds me, if you desire to be a surveyor of local food or decorative plant materials you have to remember the five P’s: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

Plan now for what you want to market next growing season, how you want to market, where you want to market, to whom you want to market, because the demand for local food and wild crafted as well as local meat, fish, dairy and poultry at this time is greater than the production.

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Billene Nemec is the Market Manager for the Old Cheney Road and Havelock Farmers’ Markets in Lincoln, Neb., and the Coordinator of Buy Fresh Buy Local Nebraska. 

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For more information about direct marketing and the Buy Fresh Buy Local program, visit the website,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , call (402) 472-5273, or write to:

Buy Fresh Buy Local
103 Miller Hall
Lincoln, NE
68583-0711