As part of the upcoming Urban Ag Fest, Slow Food Sacramento recently lobbied the Sacramento City Council to adopt a resolution naming July 11, 2009 “Urban Ag Day!” It embodies Slow Food’s belief that is important to enable residents to grow, glean, and swap food crops within the urban limits.

Slow Food's Ag Fest is being called "Common Table," and it consists of a variety of tours, workshops, films, and a gourmet three-course dinner from Magpie Caterers to be held at the Fremont Community Garden. The goal is to raise awareness about local urban gardening and food programs, as well as to advocate for improved city, county, and state food policies that enable more locally grown foods in urban locations. The event benefits the Sacramento Hunger Coalition (a program of the Community Services Planning Council), an organization that works to alleviate hunger and increase food security, and the Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition, an organization dedicated to expanding urban locations for growing fruits and vegetables.

The workshops and tours include a day on the farm with Soil Born Farm, the "What's Growing On" bike tour of urban locations for growing food, and seminars on the basics of composting, growing organically, and what hunger means. Two movies will be screened: “The Garden” and “FRESH” — both document the need for more locally grown, healthful food. Dinner speaker Brahm Ahmadi of People’s Grocery in Oakland will share his insights on Innovative Solutions for Food Justice.

Saturday, July 11, 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. (various events, locations, and prices)
For more information, visit the Slow Food site, where they encourage you to buy your tickets by July 6 at Brown Paper Tickets.

Posted by Ann Martin Rolke at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My friend Chris has a glorious garden. I asked how it came to fruition. This is part one, from Chris.

"Hey we should plant the garden this year”; Queenie (my girlfriend) said. This statement began our yearly ritual of planning our garden, but never putting it in. Other household projects took precedence but this year, there was nothing standing in the way. In less than a week, we had a garden ready for planting.

Our Barren Yard

Early the next morning, I researched soil. Since our ground can only grow weeds, we decided on raised beds and needed good topsoil. We settled on Hastie's, purchased four yards of soil (two yards too much) and they delivered the next day.

Hastie’s "mini dump" truck pulled up at eight a.m. and dropped off four yards of the most gorgeous soil I've ever seen. Dark, rich, loamy soil that smelled of earth and potential, I could not help but drive my hand deep into the soil and feel it envelope my fingers. As I lifted my hand out, the dirt spilled through my fingers and back onto the pile, “This is good soil.” I thought to myself.

Continue reading "An Urban Garden Gambol" »

Posted by Lynn Gowdy at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Join Pesticide Watch Education Fund on Friday, July 3rd for the screening of the much-anticipated movie Food, Inc. Already the film has generated quite the buzz, including apparently making USDA head Tom Vilsack "uncomfortable" at one screening.

Purchase tickets at the Crest Theatre. Cost: $12.00
Film: 8 - 9:30pm, The Crest Theatre, 1013 "K" Street
Panel: 9:30 - 10:30pm, featuring:

• Ann Martin Rolke, author Hands-Off Cooking, Sacatomato.com, and chef
  
• Jaclyn Hopkins, coordinator EAT (Environment & Agriculture Taskforce), Sacramento
  
• Gail Feenstra, Food Systems Analyst, UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP)
  
• Elizabeth Martin-Craig, Community Organizer, Pesticide Watch Education Fund
  
• Paul Muller, Full Belly Farm
  

Food, Inc., lifts the veil off our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of the US Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. A handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment now control our nation's food supply. Food, Inc. reveals surprising -- and often shocking truths -- about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are headed.

The Sacramento Valley is home to a number of the largest industrialized agri-businesses in the country, growing crops such as olives, rice, nuts, and citrus as well as cattle-raising. However, the region is also home to an emerging movement of local and sustainable agriculture.

Posted by Ann Martin Rolke at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Those of us who live in Northern California are lucky, especially if you are interested in quality food. We have easy access to so many wonderful artisan food producers and growers. CSA (Consumer Sponsored Agriculture) box choices are aplenty, fresh and seasonal at your fingertips, and passionate people with visions scattered about.

Three women are just such passionate people whose visions came to fruition. Dubbed the “G.O.A.T. Girls”, they know a few things about goats and goat milk products because they are truly pioneers in what they do, with years of experience behind them.

These successful ladies are Laura Howard (pictured above with Jethro) of Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream, Jennifer Lynn Bice of Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery, and Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove Chevre. They’ve recently come together in a campaign to educate consumers about the multitude of health benefits and wide variety of goat’s milk products available to us, and that goats are green. The start of this campaign is at

Continue reading "What the G.O.A.T?" »

Posted by Lynn Gowdy at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)