Are you a good cook and would like to barter your skills for local fruits and produce? Do you own a farm, or a back yard full of fruit trees and would like to share them with cooks in consideration for some hours of their work? Here are some great ideas on Bartering for Cheaper Local Food from Lifehacker.com and Chow.com on how to go about that and more! Hint: use BookOfCooks to find local cooks and any of the resources below to find farm and backyard owners ;=).

Grocery shopping doesn’t have to be a one-way, cash-for-goods prospect. If you’ve got a decent garden, canning skills, or other food worth giving out, there are a likely lot of venues for bartering for food in your area.
Foodie site CHOW runs down 10 options anyone can use to get started offering, say, their grandma’s recipe cookies or ridiculously good pickles for other regional goods and finds. Along with web community sites like the previously mentioned Neighborhood Fruit, CHOW suggests you can even get in on great food without having anything to swap but a Saturday morning (that you might spend at the market anyways):

Sometimes farms take volunteers to help them at their farmers’ market booths in exchange for food. Jessica Lynn-Lato, a food blogger and Chowhound, says she’s volunteered a few times at a booth that pays volunteers in organic pork. ‘It kind of grew out of my regularly buying pork from them at market. … They mentioned that they occasionally take volunteers to help out at the various markets.’

Are you wise in the ways of finding and procuring the best local grub? By all means, tell us about your finds and swap venues in the comments.

10 Ways to Barter for Food [CHOW]

(Via Lifehacker.)