Urgent call for action… Oregon Farm Direct Bill

val/ February 12, 2011

HB 2336, the Farm Direct Bill is scheduled to have a vote in the Oregon House of Representatives this coming Wednesday Feb 16th. This bill was started out of a need to make sure that the rules (from the Oregon Department of Agriculture) regarding farm direct marketers (including farmers’ market and CSA farmers) are clearly stated. For many decades, farmers’

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Food map

rich/ February 12, 2010

Via Resilience Science, who got it from Edible Geography(with excellent commentary) comes a new project of the USDA…the Food Environment Atlas. It’s a pretty fascinating tool…pounds of meat consumed per capita per year, access to grocery stores, WIC redemptions (pictured), and farmer’s markets are available down to the county level. We spent a good chunk of the evening playing around

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the real cost of cheap food

val/ August 13, 2009

I found an article from a couple weeks back in the Oregonian about efforts by farmers’ markets to encourage low-income shoppers. I thought it was an interesting article which highlighted the fact that while use of food stamps is up dramatically at several area markets, some markets are having a tough time getting low income shoppers to take advantage of

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Know thy farmer… farmers’ markets, integrity, and consumer choice…

val/ April 9, 2009

Mother Jones has an interesting article about farmers markets in its March/April edition. The article’s thesis is that farmers markets may not be all they are cracked up to be, and that the food that customers are buying at farmers markets may be overpriced versions of exactly the same produce (even grown by the same farmer) that could be bought

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