The Co-op has many ideas for assisting the local agricultural community, and for providing support for agricultural customers.
Right now, a scant 20% of the Co-op membership is involved in these projects.
We are all busy, but we hope you can offer some time!
If you are a Kingston Farm and Garden Co-op member, and are willing to lead or assist with any of these projects,
please contact growkingston@centurytel.net .
Giving Garden has moved to its own page: Giving Garden
Representative to Kitsap Community Agricultural Alliance
Julia is attending these meetings, but needs an alternate. Contact Julia at jzander@comcast.net for more information!
Requirements? attend ~ 1 meeting/month in central Kitsap and report back to the co-op.
Find out more about the objectives of this group at
http://www.buylocalfoodinkitsap.org/
Representative to Kitsap Food and Farm Policy Council
Julia is attending these meetings, but advises that we need a dedicated board member. Contact Julia at jzander@comcast.net for more information!
Requirements? attend ~ 1 meeting/month in central Kitsap and report back to the co-op.
Find out more about the objectives of this group at
http://www.kitsapfoodchain.org
Group buy coordinator
Estimated time involved: ~ 6 hours/week
Identifying products, negotiating prices, sending notices to members, taking orders,
coordinating delivery and pick-up, etc. This would probably be broken down into the different products
people are interested in and lots of people could work on this. If we do it that way, then we will still
need a central group buy coordinator who is coordinating everyone's efforts, and officially able
to commit Co-op funds.
Kinley, as Co-op president, has already arranged cover crop seed, organic fertilizer, Coco-coir
and organic seedling potato group buys, and has also been working with
Julia, Kathy & Paul on locating storage out of which to sell organic orchard grass hay this coming year.
MORE HELP AND IDEAS NEEDED !!
Crop mob coordinator
Estimated time involved:~ 1 hr/week
Help determine where each months crop mob will go, assist the hosting farm with getting set up,
promote events, maintain list of mobbers.
For more information about crop mobbing, see http://www.cropmob.org
Gleaners Needed !!!
Want to help pick fruit for the food banks? We're putting together a list of volunteers.
Or, if you have a crop or fruit tree available for gleaning, let us know!
To support this cause, contact Kinley at
growkingston@centurytel.net
Electronic newsletter publisher
Estimated time involved: 1 - 5 hr/week
be responsible for layout and formatting of a short (1 page) e-mailed newsletter, gather
content from other program coordinators
Julia has already done proof-of-concept on this,
and can assist a permanent editor to get set up.
Farm-to-School food program
Aline (paulandaline@yahoo.com) has volunteered to co-ordinate this effort.
She will be developing the systems for getting local produce into local schools, writing grant proposals, etc.
This complements the work done by the WA Sustainable Food & Farming Network (grant money!)
(Open their announcement and contact info
in Word 97-2003
or PDF format.)
We have the offer of garden area at Farrago Farm and Vineyard (FF&V), to support supplies for this effort.
Local farmers might also be willing to ear-mark some produce for this purpose, if the school district can buy the produce.
Aline will be enlisting volunteers to work in the garden, deliver produce, prepare produce, etc.
ACTIONS TO DATE:
On 25 May 2011, Kinley, Paul & Kathy met with Rita Ordonez,Western Washington co-ordinator for the Fresh Food in Schools project
(rordonez@wsffn.org),
representatives of the North Kitsap School District, and a representative of the county Health District,
to define the steps necessary to establish this program in North Kitsap.
With the use of some space at the Giving Garden to supplement available produce,
and with all profits going to other contributing farmers, it should be feasible to provide fresh produce to the schools
at a price the schools can afford, and the farmers can live with.
The following locally-compatible produce were identified as being particularly desirable:
pea pod peas (to be lightly blanched & frozen)
string beans (to be lightly blanched & frozen)
berries (fresh and/or to be frozen)
fresh cucumbers
fresh tomatoes
sunflower seeds.
It may be possible to co-ordinate processing with school staff in school kitchens.
POSSIBLE NEXT STEPS:
Identify sources of Good Agricultural Practices certification and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points training
for participating farmers. These are not mandatory, but should provide useful information for allaying
school district liability concerns.
Look into liability insurance that farmers can purchase cheaply as a group thru the Co-op.
Discuss mass planting of one or more of the vegetables of interest with the Giving Garden volunteers.
(Not to interfere with Food Bank supplies.)
Land prep of the FF&V plot.
Identify farmers willing to dedicate a row or so to the veggies of interest, for sale to the School District.
E-mail or meet with farmers to discuss logistics and requirements.
Community-Supported Agriculture Central Point of Pickup program coordinator
Estimated time involved: quite a bit while setting up, then ~3 hrs/week
develop the systems for getting local produce to central locations for pick-up by enrolled consumers.
Local CSAs burn quite a lot of gas getting their produce baskets around to their subscribers.
This co-ordinator would look into the idea of providing a centralized pick-up location for customers,
and investigate the possibility of multiple farms co-operating by dividing up who grows what,
therefore permitting larger crops, and all contributing to the same CSA baskets.
Farm tour coordinator
Estimated time involved: 2 - 4 hr/week
plan a farm tour event for late spring and coordinate with the County for participation of "our" farms in the fall farm tour
To date, we have inspected llama and alpaca fiber at Llama Lips Farm, toured the hoop greenhouses at Broken Ground Farm,
found out about equine management at Watermark Farm, and learned to prune wine grapes at Farrago Farm and Vineyard. Figplumnutt Farm has been rescheduled for summer because of the poor planting conditions this Spring.
Local meat group buy coordinator
Estimated time involved: ~ 1 hour/week
Search out local meat sources and coordinate group purchase, slaughter, packaging, and
distribution. (note that this is coordination, not actually doing the slaughter etc.)
Local poultry growers and Sequim beef and pork sellers are presently on our
Deals page. This coordinator would be looking for meat and cheese sources
closer to Kingston, and check into assisting the producers to market their product locally.