Recipe for Sustainability

The “Downtown Napa Chef’s Garden Co-op,” led by Ken Frank of La Toque, will be taking over the Copia garden until a new use is found for the space.

In addition to rescuing the garden to grow produce for their own restaurants, the group of chefs will be working with the community. They will share seeds with the Master Gardeners and hope to help to move the Copia greenhouse to Connolly Ranch.

Find out more from Paul Franson’s weekly NapaLife newsletter.

Mark Burnett, who has been designing and installing organic market gardens in Napa for over seven years, is launching a project in 2010 to connect food producers in the Napa Valley of all sizes, including household growers.

“The Community Farm Napa is being driven by landscape agriculture, an organic growing technique focused on the design, installation, and maintenance of organic market gardens and orchards in neighborhoods.”

Full article

With a new warehouse space, the Napa Valley Food Bank should be back in full operation by the second week of December. The food pantry provides income-eligible people with free food once a month, and is open at Living Vine Church (3305 Linda Vista Ave) on Thursday and Friday mornings.

Full story.

Agricultural Commissioner Dave Whitmer and local food system advocate Joanna Winter talk about the Napa County food system on KVON Radio’s green talk show.

KVON 1440
9:00am, October 23

Residents working on or interested in local food are particularly invited to join the August 5th Green Drinks, a monthly networking event for people who are interested in all things sustainable.

This month Green Drinks will be meeting on the lawn or under the shady oaks and redwoods at Main Street Trees, a native and fruit tree farm in the heart of Napa. Local food and refreshments will be provided.

For more information, visit Napa Green Drinks

Just to the North of Napa County, Lake County and the Health Leadership Network (HLN) have completed a request for proposals for a community health assessment. The information found in the assessment will help in the creation of a local food guide, act as a resource for organizations throughout the county, and identify gaps in Lake County’s local food system.

Partners in the HLN include Sutter Lakeside Hospital (which also is the fiscal recipient for the HLN), St. Helena Hospital Clearlake, Lakeside Health Center (Mendocino Community Health Clinics), Lake County Department of Health Services, Lake County Department of Social Services, Lake County Marketing and Economic Development Program, Lake County Office of Education (Healthy Start), Lake County Tribal Health Consortium Inc., Lake Family Resource Center, First Five Lake County and Easter Seals of Northern California.

Read the full article.

Residents working on or interested in local food are particularly invited to join the upcoming Green Drinks, a monthly networking event for people who are interested in all things sustainable.

The next Green Drinks will be from 5-7pm, Tuesday, July 7 at Downtown Joe’s (902 Main Street, Napa).

For more information, visit Napa Green Drinks

I am inaugurating Recipe for Sustainability with the release of the final project for my Master of Regional Planning degree, the report on opportunities for the local food system that led me to start this blog.  The paper is entitled Comprehensive Planning for the Napa County Food System: A Preliminary Study of Problems and Possibilities.

Because of the increasing understanding of the role that the food system plays in health, the environment, social justice and the economy, and the existing lack of holistic planning for this issue, I chose to analyze the condition of the Napa County’s food system.  In the paper I show that Napa shares national problems of obesity, lack of food knowledge, food insecurity and contribution to global climate change and other environmental problems.  I also show that there are a significant range of advocates and resources for the individual concerns that are affected by the food system.  I identify the benefits of bringing these stakeholders together in a participatory process to further assess and address the food system and suggest strategies and models for doing so.

Read the Executive Summary (PDF).

Read the FoodSystemReport (PDF).