For Michelle Ferrier, food represents a part of life that everyone not only takes part in, but is continuously affected by on many levels. So when she had the opportunity to develop a website around a local topic, the associate professor of communications chose local food, or eating geographically, as the focus of Locally Grown News, a website she launched last year.
“I wanted a conversation that wasn’t limited but that was central to most people’s lives,” Ferrier says. “I looked in terms of its reach and the kind of audience it would draw and the difference it would make in a community.”
The idea for Locally Grown News originated with a grant Ferrier received from the McCormick Foundation New Media Women Entrepreneurs project. From a pool of more than 250 applicants, three women were selected to receive $10,000 each to jumpstart an online project.
Ferrier’s project began as the Women’s Community News Franchise, meant to create a system where resources and content could be shared across a region. She then began to look for a specific conversation to structure the content.
She eventually decided to focus on local food because, as she puts it, the topic has “legs, arms and tendrils” that subsequently influence other decisions and activities in the community.
“If you look at the conversations happening around it, it’s a growing (topic) and we’re catching it at a point where it’s ramping up,” she says. “Everybody eats, but this is a nuanced conversation about the power of eating locally, what it does for you physically, for families, neighborhoods and communities and larger issues of food policy that affect regions.”
Though Ferrier says there are multiple food-related posts on blogs and Twitter, she has not seen anyone targeting a specific niche group, such as local foods.
“What we’re doing is combining the hyper-local with a niche in a way that is simulating what others have done but taking it with a new conversation,” she says.
Ferrier says food has the ability to ripple out and affect everything from education to sustainability issues to legislation, all of which play into the site’s news coverage.
“Running a community is a lot like running a political campaign,” she says. “You have to get out and shake hands. You have to be where people are having these conversations and let them know who you are, what you do and that there is an opportunity to participate.”
Some people have started to take notice.
Charlie Brummitt is a member of one of four groups vying to run the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market, which the Greensboro City Council decided it would no longer operate. He says a story published on the Locally Grown News site brought community attention to this issue and encouraged the four groups to act. He describes the site as a growing force in the community that came along just at the right time.
“It’s a community device and outreach tool,” he says. “As (Ferrier) gets the message out more, it’s good for agricultural interests.”
While Ferrier writes often and has free-lance contributors, local community members create much of the content for the site. Along with a commenting function, registered users can create profiles about themselves and post content.
“What I got from a lot of traditional newspaper readers was that they thought their story wasn’t important,” Ferrier says. “I found that people have situational knowledge in their life, including experiences, people they know and filters they come into the world with. Creating the technologies, platforms and motivations for people to share those stories is what I’m trying to do with Locally Grown News.”
The site has about 200 registered users, a number Ferrier says she hopes to increase. Along with the online community, Ferrier also operates a Twitter, Facebook page and email newsletter for the site, all of which have different audiences.
“It’s about managing and moving those audiences towards that full participation on the site,” she says. “It’s a gradual process … Some people are just there to find content and want to get out, while others are fully engaged.”
Ferrier is targeting the Piedmont Triad region and says she has plans to expand to surrounding areas, including Raleigh and Charlotte. She is also talking to women who are interested in starting their own versions of Locally Grown News in their communities.
“It goes back to the idea of a franchise,” she says. “Where women have a place they can start a product that draws in audience and advertisers.”
By Caitlin O’Donnell ’13