Members organize on local foods initiatives

ORA Kicks It Off with Parents and Students

 

Powder River Basin Resource Council’s Harvest Celebration took place in Big Horn, Wyoming, on September 15. The Powder River Board sponsored and hosted a delicious dinner, made largely from foods and ingredients they grew or raised themselves. In addition to fun and community, it has become a major fundraiser. The festivities begin with a mid-afternoon Farmers Market, followed by the “Home Grown” dinner, “Home Grown” music, a raffle featuring beef, and lamb and locally grown vegetables, and a pie auction.

Members of the Blue Mountain Chapter of Oregon Rural Action have taken a creative approach to promote local foods. A small group of parents worked hard in recent months to develop a “Whole Foods Curriculum” for elementary and middle-school students. Members will go into the schools once a month with lesson plans that teach nutritional values and encourage students to learn about and acquire a taste for whole foods.

Organizer and chapter member Julie Keniry said “As the customer base for whole foods gets smaller, and people are purchasing more and more prepared foods, people do not know how to prepare whole foods and children don’t get to develop a taste for them. This is an obstacle to marketing locally grown food.”

The ten member committee prepared age-level lesson plans, which were reviewed by a teacher. They presented them to a teachers’ meeting prior to school starting. The teachers found the lessons “very exciting,” Kiniry reported. Initially, the group will pilot the program in eight classrooms. The lesson plans help children distinguish between whole and processed foods, and include activities like journaling.

Northeast Oregon Food and Farm Directory

ORA published a second annual food and farm directory of local foods in Northeast Oregon. The directory lists local growers by county, their products, phone, address, and web-sites (where available), a contact name, and indicates which farmers markets they can be found at, and whether they are set up to handle Farm Direct Nutrition Program vouchers, such as food stamps and WIC vouchers.

South Dakota Local Foods Directory Now In Print

Dakota Rural Action went to the printer in mid-September with its 72 page South Dakota Local Foods Directory. The book features 75 producers and farmers markets, advertisements, consumer buying information, recipes and tips for storing food in season, and indexes to help locate products or regional producers. Summer Intern Karen Engelhart helped put it together, with the assistance of DRA Director Frank James and member-volunteer Tonya Haigh.
“South Dakota needed a really good tool to get more people interested in locally produced food,” Haigh said. “The directory is a first step for DRA’s Small Farms Committee in organizing around local food issues.

“There are definitely more producers than we have seen in the past. The directory is statewide,” she said. “Although there are more producers in the eastern one-third of the state, there are a growing number in central and western South Dakota.”

The Directory is being distributed statewide, free of charge.

Missouri Valley Resource Council Launches Community Garden

Members of Dakota Resource Council’s Bismarck affiliate successfully approached the Bismarck Parks and Recreation Department last Spring to develop community garden plots. The City has cleared enough space for several hundred 10x10 foot plots, and is providing water. The gardener is in charge of providing hose, planting, weeding and harvesting.

The 2007 gardens got a late start, as the plots only became available in mid-June. Organizer Mary Mitchell hopes for many more takers in 2008. MVRC members distributed door-hangers in the neighborhoods surrounding the gardens to invite participants, with a coupon offering a free tomato plant to gardeners. The plots rent for $25 a season, plus a $25 deposit, of which $20 is returned if the spot is cleared and weed-free when the season ends in October.