For the coming year, Buy Haywood has a number of ambitious goals, including further expansion more “cooking local” classes, helping growers expand direct consumer sales and helping livestock producers gain entry to consumer markets.

Anne Lancaster, the director of Buy Haywood, was the speaker at the quarterly Friends of Agriculture breakfast held in Waynesville this week.

In keeping with the organization’s mission to promote high-quality local farm product sales direct to consumers, she told a group of about 50 that much has been accomplished, but there is much yet to do.

In part through Buy Haywood efforts, there has been a regional livestock market center built near Canton, the number of local restaurants purchasing local products has increased and the tailgate markets have grown as ...