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Celebrating our rural traditions and heritage |
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
The 23rd California Small Farm Conference in San Diego, CA was attended by two San Benito Board Members. Entitled Sustaining our Bounty, this year’s event was a great opportunity for learning, networking and providing small farmers the tools they need to sustain and grow their farms in these tough economic times.
The Monday breakfast Keynote Address was offered by Rayne Pegg, an administrator of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service.
Breakout sessions focused on five tracks: Resource Conservation and Management Strategies; Marketing and Business Practices for Successful Small Farms, Building your Bounty: Production Strategies for Small Farmers; Strategies for Successful Farmers’ Markets; and Hot Topics in California Agriculture.
The California Alliance with Family Farms, San Benito Bounty’s partner in the Harvest of the Month program introduced this year in local schools and after-school care sites, hosted a roundtable discussion on agriculture-based education.
A second Keynote Address came at the Awards Banquet Dinner. Russ Parson, food columnist for the LA Times was amusing and warm. The 2010 Tom Haller Award Winner, recognized for exceptional and exemplary commitment to helping small farms strive and excel, went to Pompea Smith for her creation of the non-profit Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA) following her creation of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. She has opened the Farmer’s Kitchen, a 1500 sq. ft. community teaching and retail kitchen to provide job training for residents while delivering farm fresh food to the community with a retail café and innovative marketing programs. San Benito Bounty will be exploring some of these successes with an eye to application in our area in the coming years.
The final Keynote Address was held at breakfast the following day. Josh Viertel, the President of Slow Food USA shared his views on changing the face of our food system and our eating.
Next year’s conference will be held in San Jose, CA. San Benito Bounty is hoping to be part of the planning process. Perhaps you will be there in 2011!
Tags: CAFF, California Small Farm, food systems, healthy food, Josh Viertel, Pompea Smith, Rayne Pegg, Russ Parson
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Sunday, February 28th, 2010
San Benito Bounty was founded in early 2009. Its primary function is to celebrate, brand and promote the beautiful produce, unique places, wonderful products and awesome people of San Benito County. With its rural heritage and traditions, it is a breath of fresh air within an hour’s drive of Silicon Valley.
It is now 2010. Progress has been made in several of the goals set by the organization at its inception. Working with the Community Alliance for Family Farmers, the Harvest of the Month program has been introduced into the county. At many school sites and afterschool programs, a monthly box of local produce is delivered, complete with curriculum aligned with state standards for the teachers to use in the classroom and a bilingual newsletter with nutritional information and recipes to go home to the students’ families. Later collaboration with the Ag in the Classroom committee of the Farm Bureau expanded the program. The children have been tasting raw fruits and vegetables and absolutely loving it!
In addition, this website is being developed through the generosity of Teknova, whose CEO Ted Davis is a current member of the San Benito Bounty Board of Directors. The design is the brilliant work of Kathy Schipper’s team at Shipper Design. Kathy was also the creator of our beautiful and whimsical logo. Without the vision of Ted and Kathy, and the talent of Luis Alvarez, this website would not have been possible. Be looking for a community calendar and bulletin board in future days.
San Benito Bounty is hard at work on a series of free community workshops which follow the the ideas of chef Jamie Oliver, the 2010 TED Award winner. With his Food Revolution, Oliver proposes every child should know how to cook ten healthy, quick and inexpensive meals before graduating from high school. What a great idea to buck the current trend of fast food and poor eating which is creating the first generation whose life expectancy is LESS than its parents. Diabetes and obesity account for the lion’s share of health care costs, and easily avoidable with proper diet.
The Grow Gardens! campaign fosters the creation and continuation of vegetable gardens whether on private, public or organizational land. Plans are underway for gardens at the Si! Se Puede! afterschool site at the Villa Luna Apartments and at Emmaus House. In partnership with Quicksilver Farm, anyone looking to grow produce for personal consumption or donation to the San Benito Food Bank is given technical assistance…and compost, too!
San Benito Bounty is a founding member of the Silicon Valley Food Systems Collaborative, an off-shoot of The Health Trust, to bring together producers, consumers, educators and advocates to cultivate a sustainable, regional food system to provide healthful and affordable food. Its goal is to transform the local and regional food systems to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable resulting in better health and well-being for both people and the land by 2015.
The first tourism efforts are underway with a partnership of San Benito Bounty and the Pinnacles Partnership (a support organization for the Pinnacles National Monument) to create educational tours built around the agricultural corridor of Highway 25 south of Tres Pinos, the San Andreas fault, the Pinnacles National Monument and the condor nest habitat.
Members of San Benito Bounty are currently working to create a Slow Food convivia in the county. Slow Food will be featured in an up-coming blog.
In the coming months, San Benito Bounty will be working to create easier ways for the residents of San Benito to access fresh produce and agricultural products such as our wines, oils and goat milk cosmetics, supporting both the local farmers and delighting the taste buds of our community. We’ll keep you apprised of progress in this blog. Buying local helps our economy, reduces transportation costs and fossil fuel use and allows us access to superior quality and freshness.
Thank you for your interest in the efforts and progress of San Benito Bounty. If you would like to donate monetary support or volunteer your time, contact Nants Foley at 831.801.5110 or e-mail nants@sanbenitobounty.org.
It’s a good life.
Tags: 2010 TED Award, CAFF, California Alliance with California Farmers, Food Revolution, Harvest of the Month, Jamie Oliver, Pinnacle National Monument, Schipper Design, Slow Food, Teknova
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