Help Us Explore the 1st Potential “American Harvest Region”
- Raised
- $10,450
- Goal
- $20,000
In his seminal essay The Pleasures of Eating (1990), Wendell Berry stated, “eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth.”
Every meal connects us to somewhere — to land and water, farmers and workers, natural resources, knowledge, and the communities that turn a harvest into food.
Some places tell that story particularly well.
The South Mountain Fruit Belt (SMFB) of Adams County, Pennsylvania, is one of America’s great working agricultural landscapes—a breathtaking region of orchards, farms, mountains, and rural communities renowned for apples, peaches, and other tree fruits. Its exceptional fruit-growing conditions arise from a distinctive combination of southeastern exposure, well-drained soils, and the drainage of cool air down the South Mountain escarpment, together with a long and enduring tradition of orchard agriculture.
The South Mountain Fruit Belt is a place you can taste. It features:
- More than 20,000 acres of orchards with over 35 distinct apple varieties, including heirloom varieties, peaches, and other stone fruits.
- Pie fillings, applesauce, preserves, and other pantry products made from the harvest.
- Cider, wine, craft beer, and other value-added products.
- Home to the National Apple Harvest Festival, the National Apple Museum, and the Pennsylvania Cider Fest.
- Generations of growers, packing house owners, and processors.
- Knouse Foods Cooperative — a grower-owned cooperative of more than 100 family farms. Its products include nationally distributed Musselman’s and Lucky Leaf brands of applesauce and pie fillings, among others.
- An estimated $523 million economic contribution and roughly 17,400 jobs. [source: Adams County, Pennsylvania Office of Planning and Development.]
What If America Had a Way to Recognize Remarkable Food-Producing Places Like This?
America recognizes landmarks, heritage areas, national parks, and historic landscapes. But we have no national system to formally recognize and designate distinctive agricultural regions of national significance — places that give us wholesome food and specialty products, provide open space, and offer great stories about where our food comes from.
Led by the Lyson Center’s A Place at the Table Lab, the American Harvest Region initiative is exploring a new way to recognize, celebrate, understand, and help steward these remarkable places.
The places where our food comes from matter.
Could the South Mountain Fruit Belt Lead the Way? We want to find out.
In October 2026, members of the American Harvest Region Working Group will undertake an intensive field study of the South Mountain Fruit Belt. We will visit orchards and agricultural enterprises, meet the people who know the region best, and explore its landscape, history, economy, culture, and the region’s distinctive Taste of Place. The working group includes experts from American Farmland Trust, The Nature Conservancy, and The Conservation Fund, among others.
Support APAT’s Work with the South Mountain Fruit Belt
Our immediate goal is to raise funding in support of the APAT Lab’s current work, including the American Harvest Regions first potential designation of the South Mountain Fruit Belt.
Your contribution will help put the project on the ground — covering travel, lodging, local transportation, meals, meeting expenses, documentation, and other direct costs. Participating farms, businesses, and community organizations will not be expected to pay out of their pockets to host us during our field study.
This field study is the first step in a larger proof of concept: Can we develop a practical, community-centered way to recognize and strengthen remarkable American Harvest Regions?
The Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems is a project of the Center for Transformative Action, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that accepts all funds on our behalf.
For donation requests that include a check option:
Please make checks out to the CENTER FOR TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION, with “APAT" in the memo line. Mail to: CTA, P.O. Box 760, Ithaca, NY 14851