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		4/28 GGFN e-news: native plants, king corn, and more! IN THIS ISSUE:  – GGFN: News and updates – EVENT: King Corn documentary at Solstice – EVENT: Edible Native Plants Talk – EVENT: 4th Annual Northwest LAMBOREE! – GROWERS WANTED: Open pollination project – EVENT: May 10 Ride Around Our Valley – TRAINING: Essential Food Law & Regulations – NEED COMPOST? – ARTICLE: The World Food Crisis – ARTICLE: National Chains Experiment with Sourcing Locally
GGFN: News and updates April 28, 2008 Read on this week for news of local events, projects, news, and a selection of interesting articles as well. If there's something food- or farming-related going on that we've missed, please pass the news on and we'll get it in our next newsletter! In Gorge Grown news: * Farmers' Market! - The countdown has begun to opening day 2008! We're looking for vendors for the 2008 market season! Applications are in the mail to previous vendors and if you're a new vendor looking to start this year, CLICK HERE to learn more about the market and download an application. * Membership - It's always a great time to renew! We'll be sending out a reminder to all members who've not yet renewed for 2008 soon - and, coming soon, you'll be able to join GGFN online with your credit card! We hope this will make joining and renewing your support of GGFN much easier. * Community Food Assessment - If you live in Hood River County and have not yet taken our survey, PLEASE DO! It's online until the end of April. It only takes about 10 minutes. We want to hear from you! CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY. * Who's Your Farmer? - We are on track to produce the Gorge's first true "buy local guide" - a resource for anyone who wants to buy more of their food locally. If you're a local producer (all 5 Gorge counties!) - or a restaurateur or other business that sources locally - and you want to be listed - FREE - in this guide, please CLICK HERE to learn more. * There's a lot more going on here at GGFN headquarters. Look for news on the horizon about our Mobile Farmers' Market project, a new logo, a new volunteer database and ways to get involved, a school and community gardens forum, and lots more. As always, drop us a line or give a call if you have any questions, want to get involved, or just want to share some information with us. - Sarah Hackney, Coordinator, and the GGFN Steering Committee info@gorgegrown.com 541-490-6420 Back to Top
EVENT: King Corn documentary at Solstice Come to Solstice this WEDNESDAY evening at 6:30 to have fantastic wood-fired pizza & locally brewed beers and see KING CORN, one of the best-reviewed documentaries of 2007: "King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, andpowerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm." Wednesday, April 30 6:30 PM Solstice Wood Fire Cafe Bingen, WA Back to Top
EVENT: Edible Native Plants Talk Join in the White Salmon Valley Community Library's celebration of Native Plant Appreciation Week and attend a talk by GGFN member Kristin Currin, of Humble Roots Farm & Nursery, on edible native plants! Saturday, May 3 2008 7:00 p.m. White Salmon, WA White Salmon Valley Community Library's Sprint/Baker Gallery Back to Top
EVENT: 4th Annual Northwest LAMBOREE! Come out to Goldendale for the Lamboree! Featuring workshops on health practices, nutrition and selection for commercial sheep production and show lamb projects; as well as spinning, weaving and other fiber arts. Cooking with lamb is a new addition this year - read about the fantastic cooking classes here! Market lambs and breeding stock will be available on site. 4th Annual Northwest Lamboree May 17th and 18th, 2008 Goldendale, WA For more information contact: Paulette Lefever-Holbrook papa_pklh@yahoo.com or WSU-Klickitat County Extension 509-773-5817 Or visit http://www.lamboree.blogspot.com Back to Top
GROWERS WANTED: Open pollination project GGFN member Munk Bergin is seeking large and small farmers and gardeners to partner with on open pollination of corn, beans, chick peas, and several other grains. He is looking for space of about 1/10 to 1/2 acre. Munk also has locally-developed, organic, high-yield vegetable seeds for sale to small farmers and gardeners. Contact Munk at 541-806-6865 in The Dalles for more information. Back to Top
EVENT: May 10 Ride Around Our Valley Hood River Valley Residents Committee (HRVRC) is organizing a free bike ride for May 10th called the Hood River R.O.V. (Ride-around Our Valley). It is a 50-ish mile (loop) road ride. And by gosh, this is a great time of year to get out and see the valley, blooming orchards, meet some new folks, and enjoy our small community before the grand summer influx. We are organizing this social ride more or less as a means to pull people together from Hood River County and communities surrounding and celebrate this awesome valley and its people. The pace will be "social" with plenty of opportunity for energetic folks to eddy off and sprint short loops and meet up with the group after you get your endorphin fix. For those not feeling up for the whole ride, feel free to meet us along the way for a leg. Start: 9 a.m. at Hwy 30 & 35. End: 3:15 (Double Mountain Brewery). To learn more about the ride, go to http://hrvrc.org/page11/page11.html Back to Top
TRAINING: Essential Food Law & Regulations Title: ESSENTIAL FOOD LAW AND REGULATIONS Date: MAY 12, 2008 Time: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Location: Food Innovation Center, 1207 NW Naito Parkway, Suite 154, Portland, OR 97209 Registration Fees: Early - $95 if registered BY May 2, 2008; Late - $125 if registered AFTER May 2, 2008 (registration fee includes handouts and lunch) About this OSU-sponsored training: "Speakers from academia, government, and industry will provide an up to date overview for food processors on the essentials of food law and regulations. People new and old to the food processing industry will benefit from the “bottom line” information presented in this one day workshop. We will examine food regulations from a historical view to understand how the current regulations came to be. The role of state and federal regulatory agencies will be discussed as well as the nutrition, allergen and organic labeling regulations that have come about in the last few years. Lastly the increasingly important topic of product liability and security will be presented." You may register online at: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/foodsci/extservices/food%20law_regform.htm If you need more information please contact: Debby Yacas, Deborah.yacas@oregonstate.edu, or 800.823.2357 Back to Top
NEED COMPOST? NEED (A LOT OF) COMPOST MATERIAL THIS SUMMER? The Gorge Games are coming back our area July 17-20! Here's a message from the Gorge Games' Sustainability Manager: We plan to have more than 10,000 visitors attending the competition and our Adventure Village. To reduce and hopefully eliminate waste, we will have food composting stations. So, we need farmers, growers and gardeners who can take all this great stuff off our hands. Contact Suzanne at suzanne@solsticewoodfirecafe.com if you are interested! Thanks! Back to Top
ARTICLE: The World Food Crisis A GGFN member passed this link on to us: The World Food Crisis By John Nichols This article appears in the May 12, 2008 edition of The Nation. The only surprising thing about the global food crisis to Jim Goodman is the notion that anyone finds it surprising. "So," says the Wisconsin dairy farmer, "they finally figured out, after all these years of pushing globalization and genetically modified [GM] seeds, that instead of feeding the world we've created a food system that leaves more people hungry. If they'd listened to farmers instead of corporations, they would've known this was going to happen." Goodman has traveled the world to speak, organize and rally with groups such as La Via Campesina, the global movement of peasant and farm organizations that has been warning for years that "solutions" promoted by agribusiness conglomerates were designed to maximize corporate profits, not help farmers or feed people. The food shortages, suddenly front-page news, are not new. Hundreds of millions of people were starving and malnourished last year; the only change is that as the scope of the crisis has grown, it has become more difficult to "manage" the hunger that a failed food system accepts rather than feeds. ... Read the full article HERE. Back to Top
ARTICLE: National Chains Experiment with Sourcing Locally In Trial Run, Chipotle Heads to the Farm For Chains, Buying Locally Still Means a Long Journey By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer CHARLOTTESVILLE -- When Chipotle Mexican Grill executives decided to begin serving local pork from one of the most famous farmers in America, they did the opposite of what most big companies would do when jumping on the latest trend. They said nothing. ... This month, Chipotle hopes to serve 100 percent Polyface pork in Charlottesville. But that success comes after 17 months of complex negotiations and logistics, including buying extra cooking equipment, developing new recipes, adjusting work schedules and investing in temperature-monitoring technology for Polyface's delivery van. In recent months, Petrilli has visited the Charlottesville outlet about every two weeks, four times as often as he visits other restaurants in the region. Chipotle's experiment is emblematic of the enormous hurdles that face national chains hoping to embrace the eat-local trend that has until now been limited to exclusive restaurants and farmers markets. Food grown by small local farmers may taste fresher and require less fuel to transport, but the quantities rarely are large enough to sustain one busy restaurant, let alone hundreds. "We get calls all the time from individual farmers saying, 'I've got three pigs,' or 'two cows,' and there's nothing we can do with those quantities," says Ann Daniels, Chipotle's director of purchasing. And yet, some regional chains and national food service providers are launching their own buy-local experiments. For some, like Chipotle, it fits their corporate mission. Others are driven by rising concerns about food safety, skyrocketing fuel costs and growing consumer demand for fresh, seasonal food. Whatever the reason, the attempts are spurring a massive overhaul of the way these businesses operate, from the way they plan menus and pick suppliers to the way they think about food costs and distribution. ... Read the full piece HERE. Back to Top
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