Northern Piedmont Guide

Since 2006, PEC’s Buy Fresh Buy Local chapters (Charlottesville, Northern Piedmont, Loudoun) have connected multitudes of families to the fresh, local products grown and raised in the Piedmont through the free marketing opportunities afforded local farmers through our annual Buy Fresh Buy Local guides. To help strengthen those connections even further, PEC staff in 2018 conducted interviews, focus groups and surveys with our Buy Fresh Buy Local partners. These efforts have helped us identify barriers for farmers within the Piedmont’s local food system and develop strategies for strengthening local agriculture around the region.

After a visit to George’s Mill Farm Artisan Cheese, you will leave with both a sense of place and a taste of place. George’s Mill is a “Century Farm,” so named for its continuous operation by the same family for more than 100 years. Located at the foot of the Short Hill mountains in the northwestern corner of Loudoun county, the farm was first owned by John George in the mid-1700s and has been owned by his descendants ever since.

Michael Carter Jr. is a member of the fifth generation of Carters to own and work the land of Carter Farms, a century farm in Orange County, Virginia. His great-great-grandparents bought the 150-acre property in 1910, and the family has owned and cultivated the land ever since. After working on farms in Israel, Kenya, and Ghana, Michael returned to Virginia in 2017 to continue his family’s farming legacy. He and his own children now live and work on a portion of the family’s land.