August Newsletter 

We just celebrated our 13th anniversary on Monday! 🎊 Thank you for being a part of our community and for supporting local producers. Consider donating today to North Coast Food Web to continue supporting our local food system! Donate at ncfw.ddock.gives

🎁 To celebrate the occasion, if you sign up for a monthly donation ($5 minimum) you will get a North Coast Food Web Insulated Bag! 

Kitchen News

✨ We’re excited to announce that our long awaited collaboration with the Clatsop SBDC is finally official! Starting this fall, we will be hosting a cohort of local food producers in a 12-week series that includes workshops, 1:1 business and technical advising, commercial kitchen access, and more!

This is an invaluable opportunity for someone starting or continuing their packaged food business. As I have seen in action in the kitchen, a group of peers facing the same challenges and interacting regularly can offer a vital support structure in the tumultuous landscape of a food business start-up. 

If you are interested in being a part of this inaugural cohort, please reach out to our kitchen manager Andy at andy@northcoastfoodweb.org. And please help spread the word!

This month saw our second year of collaboration with the Clatsop Upward Bound summer program for high school students. This year’s program was an examination of the food system at various points. Students visited local farms, then came to the NCFW kitchen to prepare a meal with locally sourced products. We made fresh pasta, meat sauce, salad, and a peach dessert, with ingredients coming from Spring Up Farm, Little Barn Farm, Sunbeam Farm, 46 North Farm, and Baird Family Orchards. While the group was small, we had a lot of fun and learned some great skills. 👩‍🍳

Market News

We have a new producer in the market this month! Welcome Bluebell Bakeshop - a home bakery that is solar-powered and single-mom operated! Based locally in Clatskanie, Oregon, Bluebell Bakeshop goes above and beyond to provide the community with delicious, handcrafted and freshly-baked sourdough loaves, bagels, and other baked goods (all of which are made using organic flour!). 🥖

Sarah Wells, the owner of Bluebell Bakeshop, takes it a step further by supporting local businesses, sourcing her ingredients locally as much as possible, using what’s in season within the community and in her at-home garden. 

🌾 For their products, they use only Pacific Northwest regionally-grown whole grains (stone-milled), which are hearth baked in their brick oven! The results: a wide selection of delectable, freshly-baked goods from a local bakeshop that genuinely cares about their community! So what are you waiting for?! Support Bluebell Bakeshop and order yourself some baked goods today! Order online at: northcoastfoodweb.localfoodmarketplace.com

We are always accepting help from the community on market days! 🥦

Ask a market team member about how to become a volunteer today! 💪

Email us at market@northcoastfoodweb.org

Producer News

🍎 USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) today awarded a total of $10 million in grants as part of Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative. The initiative empowers schools to continue serving delicious, healthy meals that give students nutrition to grow and thrive. These funds support innovation in the school meals marketplace by incentivizing collaboration between schools, the food industry, and other stakeholders. More information about the awardees is available on the FNS School Food System Transformation Challenge webpage.

Earlier this spring, USDA announced nearly $6.5 million in School Food System Transformation Challenge Grants to Supporting Community Agriculture and Local Education Systems (Project SCALES) and the Partnership for Local Agriculture and Nutrition Transformation in Schools (PLANTS). Additional funding opportunities will be available through Project SCALES and the Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub in the coming months. To learn more about FNS, visit www.fns.usda.gov and follow @USDANutrition.

Oregon’s Farm-Direct Marketing Law allows farmers to produce certain low-risk, value-added products like fruit spreads, pickled, and lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables from their own produce and sell them directly to consumers without a processing license. Initially passed in 2011, this law was amended in 2023 to include new products, new sales channels, and an increased sales limit. 👩‍💻 Gain a comprehensive understanding of the law via linked slide deck by Kelly Streit of the OSU Extension Service, Family & Community Health Program. 

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has released its 2024 Top 20 Agricultural Commodities Statistics. Oregon’s nursery and greenhouse industry remains the leading agricultural commodity in the state. Cattle and calves remained in the second position. Historically, greenhouses, nurseries, cattle, and calves remain two of Oregon’s top commodities by value.

Nationally Oregon ranks No. 1 for the production of hazelnuts, Christmas trees, rhubarb, crimson clover seed, orchard grass seed, fescue seed, ryegrass seed, red clover seed, sugar beet for seed, and white clover seed.

Although these rankings represent the top 20 agriculture commodities in Oregon, it is important to recognize the diversity of Oregon agriculture’s ability to produce more than 225 commodities across the state, each of which brings value to the state’s economy.

As our summers are becoming increasingly hotter and drier Oregon OSHA passed some new rules in 2022 to provide for health and safety measures related to heat and wildfire smoke for farmworkers. But it’s not just humans that are affected, our livestock need considerations, too, especially in areas that experience extreme heat or high levels of particulate matter from nearby fires. 
 
Read more to learn some important tips to care for your livestock in high heat in the Oregon Pasture Network's Blog Post!  READ MORE

Maud Powell, from OSU Extension, is conducting a research project to learn more about how farmers and ranchers across Oregon are coping with the emotional and mental health effects of climate change, and how OSU Extension can provide resources to increase resiliency.
 
For a little background, Maud is both a farmer and an OSU Small Farms faculty member based in Southern Oregon. After 23 years of farming the same property, they decided they needed to move once their creek dried up and they experienced the heat dome of ’21.
 
This research project would involve either an individual interview or a group interview sometime in August- interviews would last about an hour. If you are interested, please respond to Maud Powell at maud.powell@oregonstate.edu ASAP and they will get you scheduled and you’ll receive a 50-dollar Amazon electronic gift card for your time.

Registration is now open for Small Farm School 2024! Join OSU - Extension Services for a full day of classes, hands-on workshops, and networking opportunities designed specifically for small-scale farmers and land stewards. This year, they offer a diverse programming with thirty sessions to choose from. Whether you're in your first ten years of farming or looking to expand and refine your farm's enterprises, there's something for everyone. Don't miss the chance to secure your spot in your preferred classes—class sizes are limited!

Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Time: 8:00 am - 3:15 pm (followed by an after-party at the Home Orchard Education Center)
Location: Clairmont Hall, Clackamas Community College
Registration Fees: $80 (August 1 – August 28)

$100 (Late registration: August 29 – September 6)
Scholarships: Available for students, Veteran Farmers, and BIPOC Farmers.

READ MORE AND REGISTER

Community News

Next time you’re at the Astoria Sunday Market, be sure to check out the businesses that are fueled by the Food Web:

• Nord Nosh
• Civil
• The Spice and Tea Lab
• Columbia Bar
• Ellie’s Jellies & More
• The Pie Girl and Pie Guy

From our friends at Clatskanie Farmer Collective: This year the Clatskanie Farmers Market Garlic Festival will be on August 17 from 10am - 3pm at Cope’s Park across the street from the City Library in the oxbow of the Clatskanie River.

We time the festival at the very moment the curing, trimming, cleaning and grading is complete. You will not want to miss the 20+ strains of unique garlic varieties, garlic ice cream from Cascadia Creamery 🍦 and specialty vendors from across Oregon and Washington!

Get Involved!

Our work to cultivate a resilient and equitable food system on the North Coast wouldn't be possible without our community of volunteers, our wonderful Board of Directors, and the donors that fund our programs!

1152 Marine Drive

Astoria, OR 97103

Office: 503-468-0921

Market: 971-326-0598

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