Know Your Board: Josiah Lockhart

I really started to understand the connection between food and community when I was managing The Grassmarket Community Project, originally a soup kitchen, in Edinburgh Scotland. Before the organization’s transformation, it primarily relied upon waste, out of date, and highly processed products for addressing the nutritional needs of its attendees. We very quickly learned that valuing food is an important part of valuing people, and over 4 years we transformed the project to include, among others, educational programs in agriculture, herbalism, and catering. It went on to be the first project of its kind in Scotland to source over 70% of its products from local farms.

In many ways it was the time I spent at the Grassmarket that led my wife and I to make gradual changes in our lifestyle and diet. We currently own and manage the Lockhart Family Farm, 35 minutes north of Richmond, and use our farm not just as a place to raise and sell heritage and rare breed meat, but also as an educational center that opens our doors to children and adults from all walks of life, especially those who don’t normally have access to high quality food.

We have been members of a lots of different types of co-ops over the years, and feel that the Richmond Food Co-op has an essential part to play in addressing the nutritional and community needs of Richmond. Being a democratically owned and operated organization, it places the power to make these decision in the hands of its customer/owners and has the potential to make a huge impact on the local food community. We can’t wait to see the Richmond Food Co-op develop and make an impact in RVA.

-Josiah Lockhart, Board Member

Farm to Table Fun

On August 23^rd, the Lockhart Family Farm will be hosting the 1^st of its on the farm workshops, and this one is going to be extra special. As a farm with a social conscious, we aim to re-connect people with the things they eat through educating the public, preserving heritage breeds, and ensuring that people from all income brackets (and those left out) have access to good quality, local food. We are in our first year, but have already made a commitment to donate 10% of all our produce to local food banks and offer scholarships and work training programs for Refugees in the Fredericksburg and Richmond area.

At our farm workshop, we will be giving a tour around the farm introducing you to the different components of our permaculture inspired system, our heritage animals (some of which are endangered), and give you the opportunity to taste some of these elements. Following the tour, we will sit down with you to enjoy a meal cooked by a local chef with many of the ingredients encountered on the tour (and some from other local farms). The workshop and meal costs $65 to attend.

Being a social business ourselves, we find it important to support other socially conscious businesses. Not only are we members of the Richmond Food Co-op, but we are committing to donate $5 from every ticket to the Co-op to ensure it hits the ground running and is able to provide good food to the people of the Richmond metro area. If you are not a member of the Co-op, make sure to join before buying your ticket as Co-op members get an additional 7.5% off of every purchase (including workshops) from the Lockhart Family Farm through the Buy Local Program.

Click here to purchase tickets. Co-op members email info@richmondfoodcoop.com for the promo code.

-Josiah Lockhart, Co-op Member/Owner