[TheUWfarm] Farmweek Newsletter January 9 - Welcome back!

Farmweek Newsletter | January 9, 2011
Upcoming Farm Events and General Information Tuesday Farm Lunch All quarter, T 12:30-1:20 in FSH 108 Monthly Pizza Bake Next one: Jan. 20th January All Farm Meeting Jan. 12, 5 - 6 pm Botany Greenhouse _____________ New ways to get farm information! We have a website! (and blog) Facebook Fan Page - become a fan! ___________ Send all submissions for the weekly newsletter to michelle@uwfarm.org During the academic year, the newsletter will go out weekly on Sunday evenings. ___________	Trouble viewing this newsletter? View it in a web browser here. Note for the new year: We'll be posting our new work hours soon! Keep posted by checking our calendar page. UW Farm Updates All Farm Meeting This Wednesday, January 12, from 5 - 6 in the Botany Greenhouse Stop by at 4:30 for a new members tour! Message from UW Farm Director Nina Arlein Dear fellow farmers, Welcome back! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone had good breaks, romping through the snow, relaxing with family, and eating good food. The farm is still doing amazing. The ground is frozen solid, but in the pots things are growing! baby kale hooray! A few farmers made a to-do list that is on the farm cabinet since the dirty dozen won't be meeting until next week. Because the ground is frozen construction, maintenance, and edification/ beautification will be the main tasks of this winter until things begin to thaw out a bit. So if you'd like to start scheming about fixing the chicken tractor, an aquaponics operation, improved farm signage, etc., come down and enjoy the winter sun. This quarter we'll be having a weekly farm Friday work party with an informal potluck lunch at 12:30. We will feast and then work together until we get too tired or the sun goes down. Come down whenever you can! And enjoy yourselves! Best, Nina Tuesday Farm Lunch Topic this Week: Gates Foundation's Priorities in Agriculture (With Kristin Grote) More information on our classes page. UW Farmer Blog: Blog Posts this Week Be sure to take a look at our farmer blog! Here is an overview of new stuff this week: The first in a three-part food series on do-it-yourself GMO detection. Is your tofu genetically modified? (Tobin Martin) Is there such a thing as sustainable meat consumption? (Michelle Venetucci Harvey) While you're at it, become a fan of our Facebook Fan Page, and follow us on Twitter! We'd like to formally welcome our new farm interns! These are the people who know what's happening at the farm (or will soon enough, anyways). A big farm welcome to Ross Kirshenbaum, Zachary Gayne, Lily Nash, and Maricruz Sanchez! Make sure to stop by when they're down at the farm (times TBA!), and ask lots of questions. Want to get involved in a committee? Now's your chance! It's the start of a fresh quarter, and the perfect time to start getting your hands dirty. We have a compost crew, outreach team, green team, chicken crew, and vision team, all ready for you to jump right into. For more information, check out each committee page on our website, and find contact information for our committee leaders here. Want to get more involved? Check out our updated calendar page for work parties, pizza bakes, and committee meetings! Off Farm Stuff Clean Greens-Food "Justice Starts With Us" with Guest Speaker Brahm Ahmadi Time: January 29, 2011 from 6pm to 10pm Location: Garfield Community Center, 2323 East Cherry St. Seattle, WA 98122 Organized By: Lottie & Magie Clean Greens Farm and Market is happy to announce our first annual 'Food Justice Starts with Us' Dinner Event, taking place on Saturday, January 29, 2011. The goal of this event is to raise funds for Clean Greens' food justice projects, as well as to raise awareness of the food access issues that our local communities face. For our first-ever fundraising event, we will be serving a meal cooked with local, seasonal foods by members of the Clean Greens community. Clean Greens welcomes Brahm Ahmadi, co-founder of People's Grocery in Oakland, CA, who will be giving a keynote on Oakland's food justice movement. Towards the end of dinner, a short film on Clean Greens' ongoing food justice work will be premiered. After dinner, we will be having a dessert auction, and guests can enjoy their dessert while listening to a local jazz band perform. Founded in 2007, Clean Greens is a food justice organization that is owned and operated by residents of Seattle's Central District. Our mission is to decrease the incidence of disease in our communities by increasing residents'access to healthy, pesticide-free produce at affordable prices. We are committed to delivering clean produce to all people in our communities, which we grow on our 22-acre farm in Duvall, Washington, and distribute via our Central District farm stand and CSA program. *also looking for volunteers for the event. Please contact Magie or Lottie Buy tickets here See more details and RSVP on CleanGreens Registration is now available for the Real Food Challenge Seattle Conferences on January 22nd and 23rd! In Seattle, we're putting on TWO one-day Real Food Challenge Northwest Leadership Conferences for students interested in learning about institutionalized food justice issues and taking on the challenge!  The trainings will unite students working on (or getting ready to start) real food campaigns on their campuses!   The Conference schedule is tentative as follows: Saturday and Sunday, Jan 22nd and 23rd: 8 - 9: Registration and complimentary pastry breakfast  9 - 930: Opening and Group Welcome:  Expectations and Agenda 930 - 1030: Stories from the Real Food Challenge:  The Real Food Wheel  1040 - 11: Introduction to the Real Food Challenge 11 - 12: Foodservice 101:  An Intro to the Foodservice Industry  12 - 1: Social Lunch: Provided  1 - 2: The Real Food Calculator:  An Intro to Auditing School Food Purchases  215 - 3: Outreach and Messaging Basics:  Role Playing and Getting to Work  315 - 5: Campaign Planning:  A Guide to Campus Campaigning  5 - 530: Kuleana and Closing:  Success Stories of RFC  6: Special Community Dinner at the UW Farm The conference will be held on the UW campus at the Botany Greenhouse (found off of the Burke-Gilman Trail).  Spaces are limited to 25-30 students for each day. Only $10 per person per day gets you complimentary breakfast and lunch, a day of leadership and campaigning workshops, and meeting other students from other Seattle and Western WA schools working on similar issues at their prospective schools.  Go to the Real Food Challenge website to register today! Don't miss out on: New friends and allies from the Western Washington region! Delicious meals with real food! Applicable and FUN workshops on organizing, campaign planning, and the struggle for justice in the food system! Having a solid plan so your group can hit the ground running when school starts this fall! For questions about the conference, please contact Samantha Ryder, the Northwest Regional Field Organizer for the Real Food Challenge, at sameliza@u.washington.edu Hope to see you there! Real Food Challenge Northwest Regional Field Organizers realfoodchallenge.org northwest@realfoodchallenge.org Presentation about Full Circle Farm: A meeting for CSA Members and an invitation to New Subscribers Wednesday, Feb 2 from 11:15 AM to Noon in Visitors' Dining Room of UW Tower For nearly a year, we have had weekly deliveries of organic produce & other goods coming to the UW Tower from Full Circle Farm (FCF). The boxes of produce are ordered by employees here so that they don't have to make an extra shopping trip. They also are contributing to the sustainability of a local farm and other organic farms in a network of mutual support. Several things have changed since we started this, both on the farm and at the tower drop-off site. Learn more about the options and updates from FCF representative Michele Catalano. She'll address current subscribers, as well as those who may be interested to start. If you are someone who wants to hear more about how our community is supporting organic growers, you are invited to attend. Gather in the Visitors' Dining Room at 11:15. For those who wish to stay on, there's a brown bag (BYOB) lunch and further discussion until 1:00. Please RSVP to foodcycl@uw.edu if you plan to attend, or call Syd for more info, 543-1537. Permaculture Design Course: Learn permaculture design, food production, and energy efficiency February 27 - March 20, 2011 Wild Thyme Farm, Oakville, WA Instructors: Marisha Auerbach, Dave Boehnlein, and Kelda Miller Special Guests: Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski, Jenny Pell, Rick Valley, Leonard Barrett, Mark Lakeman, John Henrikson, Kirk Hansen & more... Globally, we are experiencing unpredictable changes in climate, economy, and resources.  Through intentional design, we can anticipate what adaptive skills will be necessary for a joyful and abundant future.  In this permaculture design course, students will be immersed in strategies to build community resilience and respond to uncertainties of the future.  Our stellar teaching team will offer a 144-hour  permaculture curriculum with a focus on hands-on skill-building in food production, plant propagation, and energy systems.  The Wild Thyme Farm, a premier permaculture demonstration site, offers an immersion in examples of beautiful and productive polyculture gardens, a 100 acre FSC certified forest, and strategies for rural revitalization. Through presentations, slides, games, lectures, field trips, and hands-on opportunities, this permaculture course will offer diverse learning styles to emphasize ways that students can design their lives and engage their communities in s!  trategies for a sustainable future. COURSE TOPICS: * Permaculture Ethics & Principles * Observation & Site Analysis * Energy Conservation * Natural Cycles & Pattern Recognition * Mapping & Design Exercises * Animal Husbandry * Forests, Agroforestry, & Tree Crops * Soil Building & Ecology * Cooperative Economics * Plants, Propagation & Planting Strategies * Eco-Building & Appropriate Technology * Water Harvesting, Management, & Conservation * Urban Permaculture & Village Design Cost: $1950 including accommodations and prepared organic meals. Early bird registration:  $1800 by January 15, 2011 Click here for more information Teach Out! Engaging our Local Food Cycle: An Opportunity to Learn about a Local Co-op First Event of 2011! Central Co-op, coordinated by the Food Justice Project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice Saturday, January 22nd, 10am-2pm Please support our commitment to alternative transportation methods by biking, walking or taking public transit to this event! CAGJ's Food Justice Project invites our members and others to learn about and build connections with key players in the local food region through monthly visits to farms, community kitchens, and community gardens! The site visits will include hands-on work that is needed by or is appropriate to the sites, opportunities to debrief and reflect at the end of the site visit, and calls to action! Through these visits, CAGJ hopes to facilitate a place for the voices of our local food producers to be heard and their knowledge and skills to be recognized and celebrated. CAGJ's Food Justice Project invites you to join us in visiting Central Co-op, who has made CAGJ a Community Partner for the past couple of years! Can your cooperative grocery store be an agent and an ally in the struggle for food justice? Come to learn about what Central Co-op does to promote access to land and food, and fair lives for those who do food work. Join Central Co-op and the CAGJ Food Justice Project to help us think about our cooperative purpose, mission, vision and values, through a food justice lens. **To RSVP, please email Molly. We will send you directions and details upon receiving your RSVP. All activities will be appropriate for children and we can work out disability accommodations if needed. Regional Food Policy Council Meeting The Regional Food Policy Council will meet on Friday, January 14, 2011 from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon in the PSRC Board Room at 1011 Western Avenue, Suite 500, Seattle, WA.  The agenda is available at on their website.
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