Directory for local foods, vendors set to publish
By LARRY MEYER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Saturday, July 31, 2010 9:16 PM PDT
ONTARIO — The “local food” movement is catching hold in the lower Treasure Valley as the number of farmers markets grows. As it does, more locally-grown products are finding their way in local grocery stores and farmers are selling direct to consumers from home.
To help facilitate this, the Southeast Oregon Regional Food Bank is putting together a guide to local food — who is producing and/or selling and were it can be found. It is scheduled to be available about the middle of this month.
The effort is being led by Cleo Rico, an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Resources Assistance for Rural Environments program. Rico has been assigned to the local food bank over the last year and will be leaving soon to begin an assignment at Newport.
At this time, there are 21 local food producers to be listed in the guide.
“I definitely think there are more than that,” she said.
There are a variety of products represented among those producers, Rico said. They include fruits and vegetables, herbs, baked goods and locally grown meat which has been processed at USDA-certified plant. Besides beef, the latter includes lamb and goat meat.
One of the challenges local meat producers in eastern Oregon have faced is that the closest USDA-certified meat processing plants are in Idaho and for ranchers not close to the border transportation can be an issue. Ranchers in Malheur and Harney counties have donated beef to the regional food bank, but getting those beef animal processed and delivered back to food bank has been a laborious and expensive task. The food bank can only accept USDA-certified meat.
Peter Lawson, branch coordinator of the regional food bank, has been among those working to solve that issue and said there has been some movement toward having a USDA-certified plant in eastern Oregon and getting a mobile processing unit with that certification.
“The guide offers a lot of different choices,” Rico said.
Farmers markets are in full swing in Nyssa and Vale on Saturdays. There are a lot of vendors that sell goods or have products sold at them, Rico said. Nyssa’s market is also on the third Friday of every month.
The focus on local food production is bringing economic development to the area as the movement grows.
“It is happening right now,” Lawson said. “The other part of the challenge is educating people on the value of local food.”
But, it is not just the food bank and farmers markets carrying the ball.
Two community gardens are now operated by local groups, providing fresh produce for area emergency food pantries and providing an educational experience of some while providing an opportunity for people to become involved.
The Oregon State University Extension Office is providing classes about nutrition, health and gardening, to children at the Boys and Girls Club of Treasure Valley and then the children have been getting hands-on experience at the Ontario community garden at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. They have their own plot in the garden.
Farm-to-school programs have also taken off. In Jordan Valley, local ranchers are providing meat to the school lunch program. In the Ontario School District, Pam Suyematsu, food services director, is working to get more fresh fruit and vegetables into the school meals. In its greenhouse the Ontario High School, the FFA grows produce which is used in the school’s culinary arts class.
Brandy Ashby, Nyssa, a vendor at the Nyssa Farmers Market, said she is taking classes from the University of Idaho about living on the land, small farming and how to grow a market garden.
“U of I has been fantastic with resources,” Ashby said.
“I’ve always had a garden,” she said, and moving to Nyssa gave her the opportunity to have a market garden. “I have family members who are master gardeners.”
She also has a relative in the garden business, so it runs in the family.
This is the second year for the Nyssa market and first year to be open on Saturday.
“It’s just about showing up … showing people we are here.”
Dave and Kelly Poe, New Plymouth, have been selling goat meat for two-and-a-half years. They now belong to the Snake River Goat Meat Association.
“We sell it to individuals and we sell it to stores,” Kelly Poe said, adding those stores are mainly ethnic businesses. “We’ve been successful enough to see there will be more success,” she said.
“Our role (at the food bank) is to facilitate the conversation and continue the education,” Lawson said.
Rico said the next goal would be to have a local foods coalition established by producers to support each other’s efforts, and to address mutual projects and concerns.
