Got Specialty Crops? Sustainable Solano Embarks on New Project, Funded by CDFA

Nov 5, 2019

By Stephanie Oelsligle Jordan, Local Food Program Manager

In our mission to create a local food system that is environmentally sustainable, economically viable and socially just, Sustainable Solano applied for a “Specialty Crop Block Program” grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We are pleased to announce that we received the grant! The overall purpose of these funds is to support projects that increase competitiveness of specialty crops in California. Specialty crops are primarily those that we eat (fruit, vegetables, tree nuts, culinary herbs) but also include nursery products. As you might guess, over 100 specialty crops are grown in Solano County!

Sustainable Solano’s project is titled “Solano County Farm to Institution and Public Education Project,” and will take place from November 2019 through March 2022. There are four interrelated parts to the project. The first is development of an “info hub” of specialty crops, farmer profiles and collateral materials to promote Solano-grown specialty crops. Second is building a foundation for in-house hospital kitchens and culinary professionals (restaurants/caterers) to introduce one to two seasonal specialty crops per month. We will help bring attention to these foods through signage and other promotional materials developed in the “info hub.” Third, we will host 88 cooking classes all over the county (yes, 88!), to increase knowledge on the health benefits, sourcing and preparation of specialty crops. Finally, we will partner with Solano County Fairgrounds for a special event called Bounty of the County, which will pair farmers with restaurants for special tastings, educational events and more. We will also examine current county policies on agritourism and work to improve those that do not fully serve our farmers.

You might be wondering why “farm to institution” and “public education”? This project is in response to the results of a feasibility study led by our partners at UC Davis, which concluded that pairing farms with institutional customers (not end consumers) would provide a steady demand and allow them to increase capacity. The feasibility study also showed the need for increased public awareness on local, seasonal food around us and education on cooking/preserving those foods. Our place-based public outreach program seeks to establish personal relationships between communities and the farmers/food around them. Our ultimate goal is to have communities that value local food, leading to greater economic stability for our specialty crop farmers.

Stay tuned for updates, and keep an eye out for those cooking classes! We will be looking for people who know how to cook and want to share that knowledge within their communities by leading these classes. If you’re interested or have questions, send a message to stephanie@sustainablesolano.org

Building Alliance Toward Action on Solano County’s Local Food System

Nov 4, 2019

By Sustainable Solano

Solano Local Food System Alliance members and key stakeholders during the Listening Sessions.

In the pursuit of building a system that supports farmers and generates demand for local food, Sustainable Solano held Listening Sessions on October 22 and 23 with the Solano Local Food System Alliance to find out what key stakeholders need and want to see accomplished. The two-day event built upon previous efforts in the county, including “food oasis” and corner store makeovers that brought fresh produce into areas that previously had little access, often known of as “food deserts.” The Listening Sessions included farmers, institutional customers such as schools and hospitals, agency representatives and elected officials and were facilitated by Allison Goin, a strategic consultant in food systems and specialist in USDA grants.

Part of the conversation centered around the definition of “local,” which can carry so many connotations that it often means little to those who come across it. Some agencies dictate that local be within 100 miles or 400 miles or even within the same state, which in California covers a vast area.

A recent research article co-authored by Alliance member and UC Davis Assistant Professor Kristin Kiesel found there was more value in branding food as coming from an area or region rather than simply as “local.” In Solano County, there is a strong desire among farmers and other stakeholders to bring back the “Solano Grown” marketing label that lets county producers benefit from coordinated marketing and gives consumers a way of knowing where the food originated.

There was also a lot of interest in farm-to-institution efforts, particularly farm-to-school programs that could bring more food from area growers into Solano County schools and give students a better understanding of where their food comes from and the importance of food quality and good nutrition.

Listening Session participants gather to reflect before sharing a meal

Some have already started to make those connections. Vacaville Unified School District Director of Student Nutrition Juan Cordon recalled working with Cloverfield Farm and one of the district’s produce suppliers to bring seasonal peaches to the serving line — and how delicious those peaches were. Opportunities were floated for student field trips to local farms to see how vegetables that would appear on their lunch trays the next day were grown, and challenges raised, such as the Solano County Fairgrounds’ efforts to get more third-graders to participate in its annual Youth Ag Day.

The farm-to-institution conversation also touched on Sustainable Solano’s work with Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo on a pilot program that will replace some of the fruit and vegetables served in the cafeteria with locally grown seasonal produce and build community awareness through strategic signage that gives consumers a way to learn about the food and farmers behind it. Kaiser Nutrition Department Manager John Healy participated in the Listening Sessions. Through this partnership, we hope to both amplify current opportunities at Kaiser and engage other hospitals in similar work.

Community leaders and elected officials tour Be Love Farm with farmer Matthew Engelhart

The Solano Local Food System Alliance grew out of Sustainable Solano’s local food advisory board, which was an instrumental part of our efforts under our USDA Local Food Promotion Program project. The Alliance brings together a wide variety of stakeholders committed to fulfilling the mission of creating an environmentally sustainable, economically viable, socially just and equitable local food system in Solano County. The Alliance’s work and the Listening Sessions are made possible through a grant from Solano County Public Health in partnership with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.

To make a strong local food system sustainable will demand policy action, such as guiding institutions to make a portion of their purchases local or looking at the regulations that affect farmers in rural or urban areas. On Oct. 23, elected officials and policymakers met for feedback on what had come out of the Oct. 22 Listening Sessions and through prior one-on-one interviews with those officials.

County Supervisor Erin Hannigan speaks with gathered officials at the Listening Sessions breakfast

Many of the concerns came down to two categories, Sustainable Solano Executive Director Elena Karoulina said: Community Health and Community Wealth. There was an understanding that good, nutritious food advances the health of a community and good farming practices mean healthy water, air and soil, she said. There was also an interest in keeping money spent local, building that local economy.

The Listening Sessions were held at Be Love Farm, a regenerative farm in Vacaville, and included tours of the farm, which gave some participants a first-time look at how the systems on a farm can work together to create healthy soil and healthy food. Discussions on local food and farming extended to questions and conversations on the tour. We’re grateful to Matthew and Terces Engelhart for the beautiful setting and farm insight vital to the meetings.

Many of the participants noted that the conversation gave them a better understanding of the other players involved in the local food system and the resources that may be available to them through those connections.

Following the sessions, participants were ready to direct their energy toward action. There was excitement around supporting a local food system among those who attended and a desire to move that forward, including building community awareness and consumer demand, creating policy that supports agriculture and prioritizes local food sourcing, not just the lowest bids, and continuing to make connections and share resources to grow the market locally for local farmers.

The Alliance will meet again in January. But you can take steps to support local food now. Check out our Local Food Guide here and find out what’s going on at our Local Food Happenings page. Join a CSA and get fresh produce while supporting an area farm. Do you have a role in the local food system and want to be part of the conversation? Contact Local Food Program Manager Stephanie Oelsligle Jordan at stephanie@sustainablesolano.org

 

Building Community Capacity: Conversation at California Environmental Protection Agency

Oct 17, 2019

By Elena Karoulina, Executive Director

Sustainable Solano Executive Director Elena Karoulina, far right, shares insight on a panel at the CalEPA gathering.

Recently a few Sustainable Solano team members had the privilege of spending a day with our fellow Environmental Justice CalEPA grantees and CalEPA and other state agencies’ officials and staff in Sacramento.

We were humbled by the depth and breadth of the organizations present at the meetings. From all over California – LA, Central Valley, Northern California and Bay Area — representatives of mostly grassroots organizations described their work of fighting against unfair environmental burdens in their communities, restricting and eventually banning pesticide use in California, building green infrastructure, providing youth education and leadership skills development, and supporting healing and personal transformation for inmates using permaculture as guiding philosophy. The community wisdom in the room was palpable — we all shared our honest stories of our accomplishments, opportunities and numerous challenges to further this work, from lack of funding and policy support to the unrealistic expectations of some funders to have measurable results in a short period of time. Our impact is not always easy to measure: How do you measure hope?

California Secretary of Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld opened the gathering and set the tone of our inquiry for the day: What does “successful” community capacity development look like? He masterfully identified our major modern adversaries: complexity and abstraction. The issues we are dealing with are so multifaceted and complex that it becomes increasingly difficult for the majority of the population to grasp them in their totality. Related to this is the abstraction of many concepts. For example, climate change is so profound and global, yet for most of us it is not yet a dire daily reality. Secretary Blumenfeld encouraged us to keep it personal and relative to our communities, to distill the essence of the issues and translate them into the place-based needs of the communities we work in, yet remain aware of how those fit into the complexity of our global challenges.

Blumenfeld talked about the need to reform the system and posted a question to all of us: How would this reform look? How can we ensure that technological advancements are placed in low-income, high-need communities first? Overall, we all felt appreciated and supported by the top leadership of the California EPA.

Throughout the day and long after we’ve been reflecting on what community capacity means for Sustainable Solano. The first question we have to answer is “capacity to do what?”

We, at Sustainable Solano, strive toward a new model, a vision for our human society built on the principles of Earth care, people care and fair share for a world that works for everyone. This new world is emerging all around us at the grassroots level, and it was very reassuring to hear from state officials that the question of a structural change is presenting itself on their level, which opens up a conversation about what that change will look like. It will take all of us, every level and all three major sectors of our society — business, government and civic — to work together to create a more sustainable future for all. We work on the ground, rooted in our neighborhoods, inspiring, educating and empowering our community members and providing tools and space to take heart-based actions toward the good of the whole.

What kind of community capacity supports this work? What would be a crucial characteristic we all need to have? We think it’s CONNECTION – to ourselves, to each other, to the world around us and to something larger than ourselves, whatever it might be for each of us.

We see the role of Sustainable Solano in enacting and supporting these connections through meaningful, tangible work in our communities. Every time you come to our events to plant trees, establish a permaculture food forest or install a greywater system, we are doing just that — seeding these vital connections all over the county.

This is exactly how we approach our Listening Circles project in Central Solano, funded by CalEPA’s Environmental Justice grant: We would like to bring to the communities mostly affected by the environmental pressures a balanced sense of urgency and agency, knowledge about environmental issues in their backyards, and practical, achievable, community-based solutions to fix the problems or at least ease the effects of them.

Looking forward to seeing you at our next community event!

St. Patrick – St. Vincent Students Learn About Sustainability and Install Demonstration Food Forest Garden

Oct 10, 2019

 

Students at St. Patrick-St. Vincent Catholic High School are learning about sustainability this school year through a pilot sustainability curriculum and hands-on food forest garden installation. The program started in May with the construction of a cob bench made of clay, sand and straw and incorporating “bottle bricks” — plastic bottles filled with nonrecyclable plastic trash.

This month, students will learn about sustainability in class, including an introduction to permaculture and systems thinking, planetary limits and wise water use. Incorporating science and math standards, the lessons will introduce students to sustainability, where their local water sources come from and how to capture rainwater within an environment. The curriculum development is funded by a grant from the Solano Community Foundation.

Students will gain a deeper understanding of what they’ve been learning in class through the installation of a demonstration permaculture food forest garden on campus. This part of the program is supported through Solano Sustainable Backyards, which is funded by the Solano County Water Agency.

“This collaboration with Sustainable Solano is a valuable learning opportunity for our students,” science teacher Summer Ragosta said. “They are able to get hands-on experience with environmental science concepts, including practical ways to protect topsoil, one of our most valuable natural resources, from erosion and degradation. This has implications that go beyond the garden, and help students gain insight into lessons on climate change, waste management, and biodiversity. I am honored to be a part of this great program.”

The food forest project will demonstrate sustainable urban agriculture and water conservation. Through the installation, students will gain hands-on, practical experience in creating guilds of fruit trees and plants that work together, building earthworks to capture rainwater, build a rainwater collection system and learn about greywater.

The school community is enthusiastic about this exciting program and the connected projects, raising additional funds to build more reinforced and secured seating terraces. The food forest will be at the top of the new amphitheater, creating a welcoming, nourishing space for students and campus gatherings.

“I have imagined this space for many years, as I would be working in the garden at the top of the hill,” said Rick Rodgers, a teacher on campus for 32 years and 1977 St. Patrick alumnus. “Both students and adults will value the serenity of the space. Being tucked away in that back corner creates a sense of privacy and the trees and gardens are beautiful and will become more beautiful each year.”

This demonstration food forest project is supported by a grant from the Solano County Water Agency. The pilot curriculum program and cob bench construction are supported by an ED Plus grant from the Solano Community Foundation.

Photo/interview opportunities:

  • Monday, Oct. 14: In-class introduction to permaculture lesson
  • Monday, Oct. 21: Food Forest installation (planting trees and sheet mulching)
  • Wednesday, Oct. 23: Food Forest installation (planting tree guild understory and drip irrigation)
  • Thursday, Oct. 24: In-class introduction to water harvesting (with hands-on soil erosion lab)
  • Monday, Oct. 28: Water harvesting math lesson (a representative of curriculum funder Solano Community Foundation will be attending the first class period)

Students will be involved in these lessons during the following class periods most days:

    • 9:14-10:07 a.m.
    • 11:23 a.m.-12:16 p.m.
    • 1:57-2:50 p.m.

Oct. 24 class times differ: 

    • 9:50-10:36 a.m.
    • 11:46 a.m.-12:32 p.m.
    • 2:04-2:50 p.m.

 

Contacts:

Jaime Kim

Director of Development

St. Patrick-St. Vincent

707.644.4425 x452

j.kim@spsv.org

Nicole Newell

Sustainable Landscaping Program Manager

Sustainable Solano

707.567.3272

nicole@sustainablesolano.org

Allison Nagel

Workforce Development and Communications Manager

Sustainable Solano

805.512.0901

allison@sustainablesolano.org

 

About Sustainable Solano

Sustainable Solano is a countywide nonprofit organization that is dedicated to “Nurturing Initiatives for the Good of the Whole.” The organization brings together programs that support and sustain one another and the Solano County community. Initiatives include sustainable landscaping, local food, resilient neighborhoods, sustaining conversations and community gardens. 

For more information about Sustainable Solano, email info@sustainablesolano.org or visit sustainablesolano.org

 

About St. Patrick-St. Vincent School

St. Patrick – St. Vincent Catholic High School is the only diocesan Catholic college preparatory high school in Solano County with a century-long tradition of education that supports the success of 465 students every school year.

For more information about St. Patrick – St. Vincent Catholic High School, please visit our website at spsv.org.

Residents Turn Out in Rio Vista to Build Edible Food Forest Garden, Greywater Workshop This Weekend

Oct 10, 2019

 

Around 20 people gathered at a Rio Vista home on Saturday, Oct. 5, to learn about what goes into creating a sustainable, edible, water-wise yard, starting with laying the foundation to capture rainwater in the ground and nourish plants while limiting runoff from the property.

“The first day was filled with community magic,” said Nicole Newell, sustainable landscaping program manager at Sustainable Solano, the organization behind the workshop and garden. “Residents of Rio Vista and surrounding counties came together to meet like-minded people, learn about permaculture and see it in action!”

Newell said participants ranged in age from teenagers to seniors. The homeowners made a taco meal with meat and vegan options.

“One Rio Vista resident said it was truly beautiful to see everyone working together as one,” she recalled.

The day-long workshop was the first of three that will install Sustainable Solano’s first food forest in Rio Vista through the Solano Sustainable Backyards program. Called “Fortune’s Garden,” the food forest will show what can be created from the blank slate of an empty yard in a new development.

Participants Saturday learned about the concept of permaculture, a sustainable design system stressing the harmonious interrelationship of humans, plants, animals and the earth. Designer Lauren Bennett of Bay Wise Gardens talked with the group about food forest gardens and then led them in digging water-capturing swales, moving wood chips onto the site to build healthy soil and hold rainwater and planting trees.

The next workshop will be this Saturday, Oct. 12. Participants will learn how to install a laundry-to-landscape greywater system that diverts water used in each load of laundry to mulch basins around trees and plants in the yard, saving water costs for the homeowner while keeping water on-site and creating a vibrant garden.

The program and the series of installations in Rio Vista are made possible by the generous support of the Solano County Water Agency.

Rio Vista Demonstration Food Forest Installation

10 am-4 pm on Oct. 12 and 19

The address will be available to participants upon registering. Lunch will be provided by the homeowner at each workshop. Please bring hats, gloves, reusable water bottle and sunblock. 

For more information and to register, visit SustainableSolano.org/events

(More details and direct registration links included below)

Saturday, Oct. 12 – Laundry-to-landscape greywater system

Greywater Action will be leading the workshop to teach hands-on how to install a simple laundry-to-landscape system in your own home. You will learn how to install a simple three-way valve in your laundry room, connect the pipe from your washing machine to your landscape, and how to prepare your landscape to receive the greywater. This installation day begins with a lecture about greywater.

Saturday, Oct. 19 – Learn to install a water-efficient in-line drip irrigation system and plants

We will add plants to the ecosystem as well as drip irrigation, and have an opportunity to see a dead, barren backyard transformed into a customized food forest based on permaculture design principles. This installation includes a short lecture from Lauren Bennett, owner of Bay Wise Gardens, on selecting plants and creating a custom design. 

Topics Covered:

  • Planting a community of plants with multiple functions that support a healthy, diverse ecosystem.
  • Surface drip irrigation installation: adding irrigation for young plants and water conservation.
  • Covering the food forest with free woodchips (mulch) to prevent water evaporation and improve soil health.

About Sustainable Solano

Sustainable Solano is a countywide nonprofit organization that is dedicated to “Nurturing Initiatives for the Good of the Whole.” The organization, now in its second decade, brings together programs that support and sustain one another and the Solano County community. Initiatives include sustainable landscaping, local food, resilient neighborhoods, sustaining conversations and community gardens. 

For more information, email info@sustainablesolano.org or visit sustainablesolano.org

 

Photos below should be credited as courtesy of Sustainable Solano. Larger files available upon request.