Fred Broughton

Fred is the Marketing Specialist with the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, where, among other things, he is responsible for providing support for planning, organizing and operation of eighty community-based farmers markets in South Carolina.  Since beginning with the Department in 2003, the number of community-based farmers markets in the state has doubled. Fred also helped facilitate the development of South Carolina Association of Farmers Markets, which established a charter in January 2009. Fred initiated a program to help farmers markets get authorization to accept EBT, and to date  his state has 14 markets authorized to accept EBT for SNAP participants. Having grown up on a family farm, Fred has been involved with agriculture his whole life.  He served as the co-coordinator for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) in South Carolina, and served on the SARE Leadership Committee for the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean Islands.