Our Collective Work in Motion: A Community of Practice (CoP) Reset

Our ongoing partnerships with a handful of Georgia’s finest farmers' market leaders and Georgia Grown continue to demonstrate the strength in pairing local food systems with regional collaboration. When farmers' markets are intentionally supported, they contribute to local economic circulation, sustain small-scale producers, and expand reliable pathways to fresh food. 

Through our collaboration with Georgia Grown, we work closely with market leaders, producers, and other food system experts to strengthen market viability and long-term success. Central to this work is our Georgia Market Leader Community of Practice (CoP), which brings us together in shared learning and best practice cultivation. Our meetings are part learning space, part testing ground, and part support circle, allowing participants to exchange strategies, surface challenges, and refine approaches grounded in on-the-ground experience.

Rather than operating as a top-down program, each Community of Practice is co-created.

Participants contribute insight shaped by their roles and regions, and over time, a collective body of knowledge takes shape. Across recent sessions, this has included conversations about producer retention, market operations under shifting conditions, and ways to strengthen customer trust and participation. What began as structured dialogue has grown into sustained relationships that extend beyond the sessions themselves.

This shared work has generated collective momentum. Insights and priorities emerging from the Community of Practice are now informing a new campaign set to launch soon, one shaped directly by the needs and strategies identified by market leaders and growers. By aligning this effort with Georgia Grown and trusted market partners, our work remains grounded in data while staying closely connected to lived, place-based realities.

Together, we are developing solutions that are responsive to local conditions, supportive of producer livelihoods, and attentive to long-term environmental care. These partnerships reaffirm farmers' markets as spaces of nourishment, economic circulation, and shared responsibility, anchored by relationships that continue to grow stronger over time.