All posts in Farmers category.
The Columbia Heights Community Marketplace, Ward 8 Farmers Market, and Mt. Rainier Farmers Market all kick off their seasons this Saturday, June 5. Two of these markets are setting up their tents for the first time. All three offer both local food and a community focus. The brand new Columbia Heights Community Marketplace will light [...]
This Saturday, May 15th, the DC Crop Mob will descend for the third time on a local sustainable farm to lend a hand. After two successful events in March and April, we’re ready to bring farmers and friends together at Blueberry Gardens in Ashton, MD! But first: Report from the April Crop Mob: Mountain View Farm Nearly [...]
If your answer is a resounding YES!– we all do have a right to nutritious food for our bodies and souls, then join us in reclaiming our health, our land, and our communities, and help us to sow seeds for the future!
Sowing Seeds Here and Now!: A Chesapeake Area Urban Farming Summit
Featuring Will Allen of Growing Power
Friday, June 18th, 2010 at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, 10300 Baltimore Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705
Urban Farming is a movement to return the cultivation of our meals to our neighborhoods and cities, revitalizing vacant lots and abandoned properties, productively employing local residents, uniting communities, and ensuring greater social justice. Urban agriculture efforts speak to the well-being and health of our bodies, our society, our environment, the Chesapeake Bay, and our County. It also speaks to our basic right to choose good and have access to good safe nutritious food.
By Rebecca Kanter
DC’s Field to Fork Network and the DC Food for All are hosting a free panel discussion on Friday, April 16th at THEARC in Southeast DC from 10 AM to 2 PM. The topic will be community food security, with two panels: one that has a national focus and one that will look at what’s going on here locally. Afterward, a reception begins at approximately 1:15. Appetizers will be served!
Registration available here.
Yesterday, we met Maurice Small. Malik Yakini is another one of the speakers on the national panel. Now, let’s meet him!
Why did you decide to participate on Friday’s Panel?
I am interested in the food access and food justice work in DC and see many linkages between DC and Detroit. Common problems call for common solutions.
We are doing work in Detroit to organize the black community and inform the government that impacts the black community. We are particularly interested in forums that are directed at reaching the black community and giving the black community a voice.
The trend nationally is that young well-meaning white people, mostly young women are at the forefront of this work.
Hi everyone,
The D.C. WIC Agency scheduled a second training for farmers interested in accepting WIC and FMNP vouchers. That training is set for April 15, 1 to 3 p.m. If you want to register, please email me at kroberts@dchunger.org — I’d be happy to pass your name on to the Agency.
The D.C. Farmers’ Market Collaborative meets monthly at D.C. Hunger Solutions. Anyone is welcome to attend and discuss outreach/publicity about the new WIC cash value checks — and publicity for markets generally. Please contact me if you’d like to attend a meeting, and/or if you’d like to be added to our email list to keep up with farmers’ market news and opportunities to help.
Additionally, the Farmers’ Market Collaborative (in cooperation with the WIC Agency) is creating a handy, at-a-glance guide to the four federally-funded nutrition benefits that residents can use at District markets. This guide will be available for all farmers and market managers as a quick-reference to have on hand at their cash registers. (It also might prove a useful model for other states in the future — as the June 2009 CFSC report notes, only about half the states have elected to include farmers’ markets this year as vendors for the new fruit & vegetable checks included in the WIC food package.) Contact me if you would like a copy.
Thanks, and I hope to hear from many of you soon!
-Kristin Roberts, D.C. Hunger Solutions
kroberts@dchunger.org; 202.986.2200 x3041
There’s a new opportunity in DC for anyone who enjoys working outside, wants to learn more about farming, or just likes to hang out with other farmy types. Originally started by some farmers-at-heart in North Carolina, “crop mobs” have been sweeping the nation since The New York Times published an article about them - and there’s one starting up right here in DC. Think “flash mob” rather than “angry mob”: crop mobs work by descending en masse onto a local farm for a few hours, where they get a phenomenal amount of work done while having a ball.
Basically, a crop mob is just a group of people who enjoy getting together to do farm work, whether to get some exercise and fresh air, learn more about farming, contemplate an agricultural career, or get ideas for their garden. For farmers, it’s an opportunity to get those jobs done that you’re always putting off until next year, or haul in an unexpected bumper crop of beans. Farmers and crop mobbers collaborate to organize one farm visit per month. The farmer, in exchange for the help, generally provides a hearty lunch to the hardworking volunteers. Everyone returns home a little richer from the experience.
If that sounds fun, you might want to check out one of these events this weekend:
Saturday morning (3/27) an unusual “pre-season” crop mob will help build birdhouses at Fresh and Local CSA in Shepherdstown, WV. The birdhouses will be placed around the vegetable rows to lure insect-eating birds into garden patrol. Carpools leave DC at 8:15am, return 2:30pm.
Sunday afternoon (3/28) there’s an informational meeting for anyone that wants to learn more about the crop mob idea – for those who’d like to meet people and have the opportunity to ask questions in person before diving in and committing to a full day on the farm. Hopefully, we’ll also be able to share ideas about what farms we’d like to visit and what experiences we’d like to have over the 2010 season. The meeting will be from 3-5pm at Busboys & Poets 14th & V. If you have thoughts or ideas for farms to visit, but can’t make the meeting, send an email to peopleforthepotomac at gmail, or comment on this post, or post on the Facebook group’s wall.
To learn more about the DC Crop Mob and both events, visit the DC Crop Mob Website or the DC Crop Mob Facebook group
And stick around after the Sunday meeting to catch a free screening of:
DIRT! The Movie
5:00pm Sunday, March 28, Busboys & Poets, 14th/V
Yeah – it’s a movie about dirt. If that sounds uninteresting, consider this bold quote by Franklin Roosevelt: “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Or this one, author unknown: “Man – despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments – owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Dirt is not only important; it’s also awesome.
Synergy – where the sum is greater than the parts. If we can connect the dots at the grassroots level, we can amplify our collective voices. I recently returned from a Witness for Peace-sponsored delegation to Oaxaca, Mexico that focused on sustainability, trade policy, food sovereignty and the roots of migration. I returned with lots [...]
We received this letter that Bernie Prince, co-founder of FRESHFARM Market, sent to Dr. Pierre Vigilance of DC’s Department of Health earlier this week.
Ms. Prince notes that the new WIC Fruit and Vegetable Cash Voucher Program — which enables low-income mothers to redeem food assistance coupons at farmers markets — is currently limited by a registration process that hampers farmer participation. As reported here recently, farmers had only one opportunity (this past Wednesday) to train and register to accept WIC vouchers. Ms. Prince notes that there are other options to increase community participation in this promising program.
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March 9, 2010
Dr. Pierre Vigilance
D.C. Department of Health
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Vigilance:
I am writing to you on behalf of WIC recipients in Washington, D.C. and Maryland to urge you to expand access to fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables for low-income families. At FRESHFARM Markets, we were pleased to learn that D.C. will authorize market vendors to accept WIC Fruit and Vegetable Cash Value Voucher coupons (FVC). We applaud you for participating in this new program, and appreciate the District’s continued participation in the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP).
Unfortunately, based on feedback from farmers, we are concerned that the new FVC program will not reach its full potential here. One major hurdle is the training to participate. As you may be aware, there is currently one training session available, on March 10, in Greenbelt, MD. The training runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will require a two- to three-hour drive for many of our market farmers. The very same training for farmers market producers in Maryland covers all the necessary material in about one hour. In addition, while D.C. WIC farmers market coordinator Sabrina Lewis has scheduled just one training, James Butler, of Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is planning multiple training sessions on 13 different dates in Greenbelt, Annapolis, Hagerstown, Baltimore, and Denton.
Based on a preliminary survey of farmers and our own experience, Maryland’s approach will significantly increase farmer participation. A member of the group DC Food for All, Daniel White, has conducted interviews with four of the farms that are most ubiquitous at markets within the District. One resounding finding: Farmers will not take part in a new or existing WIC program if it requires a large time investment and small earnings. The current training opportunities, in addition to other complaints such as the complex process of using WIC checks and delays in reimbursement, could limit the number of farmers willing to sell to low-income mothers.
I believe there is a simple step you can take to improve farmer participation in the WIC programs at farmers markets. Maryland and D.C. could craft an agreement to accept training for the FVC and FMNP across District and state lines.
