On a recent weekend I was blessed to have the opportunity to park our VW Eurovan in a lush green field dappled with wild flowers at my friend’s ranch in the Cazadero hills of Sonoma County. Nestled by a creek, surrounded by redwoods, oaks and bay laurel, we watched the parade of llamas and cows migrate past us like clockwork each day. The first night we made a campfire with our friends (which we know won’t be possible in a few weeks), and the second night we walked up to their 1860’s ranch house about a quarter-mile away where we ate fresh picked kale from their garden and incredibly delicious salmon they had traded with a neighbor for some lamb. After dinner our hostess went to the chicken coop to close them in for the night, where she encountered a skunk harassing the hens. A few minutes later we heard two blasts from a shotgun and the skunk was no longer with us - although his fragrance lingered.
I feel so fortunate to be able to annually return to this magical place, and to hear the stories of the people who have lived and toiled there since the mid-nineteenth century. On this visit our hostess told us that during the 1906 earthquake, when her father was 10 years old, he was sleeping in the very room where we were dining, and his bed shimmied across the room.
There is so much rich history in the beautiful hills and bountiful farms surrounding the Bay Area, and it is my greatest pleasure to be able to connect people to those who work to grow our food. This summer we plan to offer a very limited number of open-to-the-public tours, and we will be sharing information about these opportunities soon. We continue to offer private tours year-round for business retreats, birthdays, reunions, anniversaries and other special events, and would love to have the opportunity to take you off the grid to magical places to rest, learn, and celebrate!
Unfortunately not everyone in the Bay Area has the ability to visit farms or eat healthful food, which is why we work hard to provide opportunities for people to appreciate our bounty, support local farmers, and learn about food access. We were thrilled recently to be able to offer a series of Urban Agriculture and Food Sovereignty tours for students at both Sir Francis Drake High School in Marin and Berkeley High School's Green Academy. We welcome your ideas about how to fund such tours for students, or other kinds of groups who otherwise would not be able to benefit from these kinds of experiences. [Check out the pictures and video below.]
Berkeley High School Group
Local resources, from food banks to community-created markets and gardens, have long been important throughout the Bay Area – where income segregation is rampant, and
urban food deserts with no access to healthful food are within miles of the residences of some of the richest people in the world. Once an overlooked issue, food justice has finally crept into the collective consciousness. Food policy councils are growing around the state, and with the aid of a grant given to the non-profit Roots of Change, food policy advocates are now united as members of one cohesive organization: The California Food Policy Council. In addition, your local farmer and your own garden may be the best sources of healthful food for your family – and we’d like to share our favorite resources to enable you to make your dream of having a garden into a reality.
There is so much going on in our amazing area, and BAGT’s mission includes sharing the bounty (and the beauty!) -- while connecting people to ideas and resources for a healthier, more sustainable 21st century.
Sir Francis Drake High School Group - Learning and Having Fun on the Bus
BAGT NEWS
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BART Blue Sky Festival - Please Help BAGT Win Free Advertisements in BART Stations!
BAGT participated for a third time in the BART Blue Sky Festival held at Justin Herman Plaza on April 19th. The free lunchtime event, which attracts about 4,000 people, celebrates the eco-friendly attitude of the Bay Area and features a wonderful variety of commercial companies, nonprofit organizations and public agencies that provide green products and services to area residents.
Please take two seconds to vote for BAGT in BART’s Blue Sky contest!
BAGT is competing against other Bay Area nonprofits for a chance to win valuable exposure in front of BART’s 400,000+ daily weekday riders, and YOU have a chance to win a $500 Clipper card just for voting, or a $100 Clipper card.Please vote for us now, HERE!
The voting goes through Sunday, May 12, 2013 at midnight, so after you vote, please ask others to support us by doing the same. We will be truly grateful! The top three most voted for organizations will be included in a 2013 advertising campaign in BART stations, on both interior car cards and in-station ads. If we win, BAGT will design the ad that our fans will see when they ride BART. We are only competing against a small number of other organizations in this contest, so we have a real chance of winning IF everyone reading this email takes a quick moment to register your vote!
Please help us get the word out about this contest via Twitter, Facebook, online newsletters and any way you know how. Note: in order to vote you need to be over 18 and a California resident, and you can only vote one time -- UNLESS you leave a nice comment on BAGT's voting page and post it to your Facebook wall - BART is tracking who is sharing this contest, and by doing so, you'll earn a second vote in the contest.
Thank you very much for participating in the voting and supporting BAGT in this vital way, and GOOD LUCK!
EBMUD Sponsors BAGT’s Efforts!
Thank you East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) for your recent sponsorship! We welcome you to our community of supporters who enable BAGT to provide opportunities to meet pioneers creating a positive future, and to taste, touch and see sustainable solutions in action.
Four School Food Justice Tours in April
SFDHS Group at Marin Food Bank
Petaluma Seed Bank
On the way to Devil's Gulch Ranch
April was a month of educational Food Justice Tours for Bay Area Green Tours! We were given the opportunity to host two Food Justice Tours for Sir Francis Drake High School and two for Berkeley High School's Green Academy, serving over 120 students through these tours alone. Both programs connected students with local projects addressing food sovereignty and promoting sustainable agriculture. We’d like to thank our amazing hosts at all of the tour stops for being so accommodating and inspiring!
On our pilot tours for Sir Francis Drake High School, students started their trip at the gorgeous Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Nicasio, lead by BAGT Tour Guide Aaron Lander. Highlights included the stunning scenery and a chance to tour with rancher Mark Pasternak and meet his new litter of bunnies! The group continued exploring their foodshed at the Petaluma Seed Bank, where Paul Wallace gave the students an introduction to seed saving and each of them received a packet of seeds. At the Marin County Food Bank they learned about issues of local food security, followed by a lively discussion about how they can get involved in addressing these issues in their own communities.
Touring with Sam from ECOSF
Talking Permaculture at the garden at 18th & Rhode Island
Kate Trimlett’s Berkeley High Advanced Placement Environmental Science students also embarked on two explorations of local sustainable agricultural sites in San Francisco. The first group got their hands dirty, talked start-up culture and discussed career paths at ECOSF School Garden, La Cocina Incubator Kitchen, and at the18th and Rhode Island Permaculture Garden. The second group visited: Mandela Food Co-op, People's Grocery, Three Stone Hearth, Berkeley Youth Alternatives and Sunnyside Seedlings. From the consistently positive feedback we received, our tours were both meaningful and inspiring for participating students.
CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO VIEW A SPECIAL VIDEO FROM THIS TOUR!
BAGT STAFF AND INTERN UPDATE
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Fond Farewell and Thank You to Silke Müller
We are very grateful to Silke Müller, who has recently left BAGT to enjoy other adventures, including hiking Spain’s El Camino. Silke served for the past year as our Tour, Sales and Marketing Manager, and in her time with us she successfully developed a new integrated strategy regarding social media marketing and optimization of search engine results, which more than doubled our website traffic, social media outreach, and monthly requests for tours. She also updated BAGT’s website, prepared customer invoices, developed new tour proposal and pricing templates, and provided analyses and frameworks to set a strategic direction for BAGT’s business objectives. Silke worked with great dedication to our organization and went far beyond performance expectations. She was flexible in her position and worked well with both the public and our internal team members. Bon voyage, Silke, and a million thank yous!
BAGT Welcomes Three New International Interns!
BAGT is thrilled to welcome three fabulous international interns who have recently started working with our team! They hail from Finland, Sweden and France, and we will feature a short article on one of them in each of our upcoming newsletters, starting with the one below.
Jenna Silander, Sales Intern
Jenna will graduate next December, 2013, with a B.A. in International Tourism Management. She left her country, Finland to begin an amazing journey in the US with BAGT. She has worked as a tour guide in Hurghada, Egypt and as a Tour Manager in Stockholm, Sweden before embarking on her B.A. studies. Jenna loves traveling, outdoor sports, exploring new things and meeting new people, and is inspired by Bay Area Green Tours' perfect combination of adventure, fun, traveling and acting responsibly. She can be reached at jenna@bayareagreentours.org
RECOMMENDATIONS & COMMUNITY NEWS
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Events
TOMORROW / Friday 4/26! The Sustainable Enterprise Conference April 26, 2013 in Rohnert Park, CA
The Sustainable Enterprise Conference is happening this Friday, April 26th. This day-long learning and networking conference is dedicated to helping North Bay businesses, academic, government and non-profit organizations transition to economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The conference program provides organizations and individuals with the latest information on how innovation and sustainability will drive the economy while preserving the resources needed for a prosperous future. To get the scoop on this full day of inspiration, opportunity and networking, click here for more information or here. to register.
Slow Money National Gathering, April 29-30, 2103 in Boulder, CO
Slow Money’s National Gathering features dozens of food entrepreneurs who are leading the way rebuilding local food systems around the country, along with many renowned thought leaders in agriculture, investing and philanthropy. The program of Slow Money National Gatherings integrates internationally recognized leaders, next generation social entrepreneurship, and an environment that fosters shared learning across the full spectrum of backgrounds -- from the most sophisticated financiers to individual investors, from farmers to food entrepreneurs. The program also includes elements of film, music, and Meet the Author sessions, because fixing the economy from the ground up is not only a financial activity, but also a cultural one. For more information, click here.
Book
Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability
Editors: Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman
Price: about $27 / Published: October 2011
Order: support your local bookstore by ordering here.
Popularized by such best-selling authors as Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver and Eric Schlosser, a growing food movement urges us to support sustainable agriculture by eating fresh food produced on local family farms. But many low-income neighborhoods and communities of color have been systematically deprived of access to healthful and sustainable food. These communities have been actively prevented from producing their own food and often live in "food deserts" where fast food is more common than fresh food. Cultivating Food Justice describes their efforts to envision and create environmentally sustainable and socially just alternatives to the current food system. Bringing together insights from studies of environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, critical race theory, and food studies, this anthology highlights the ways in which race and class inequalities permeate our food system -- from production to distribution to consumption. The book explores a range of important issues, including: agricultural and land use policies that systematically disadvantage Native American, African American, Latino/a, and Asian American farmers and farmworkers; access problems in both urban and rural areas; efforts to create sustainable local food systems in low-income communities of color; and future directions for the food justice movement. These diverse accounts of the relationships between food, environmentalism, justice, race, and identity will help guide efforts to achieve a just and sustainable agricultural future for all.
The fourteen-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles was the largest of its kind in the United States. It was started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992. Since that time, the South Central Farmers have created a miracle in one of the country's most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now bulldozers threaten their oasis. The Garden is an unflinching look at the struggle between these urban farmers, the City of Los Angeles, and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehouses in the place of their garden.
Food Stamped is an informative and humorous documentary film following a couple as they attempt to eat a healthful, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Through their adventures they consult with members of the U.S. Congress, food justice organizations, nutrition experts, and people living on food stamps, culminating in a deep look at America’s broken food system.
SUSTAINABLE SPOTLIGHT
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Grow Your Own Vegetables: Tips for Beginners
As the warm spring days march on, the sun and blue skies can inspire the urge to sit in a cool green garden with a glass of lemonade. If you’re like me though, you have to grow that garden first – and sometimes out of an expanse of weeds and rocks. With little past experience in the gardening realm, I find myself overwhelmed by the wealth of information surrounding this topic, so having some simple guidelines to follow is a big relief.
First of all, why should I grow my own plants?
Although growing your own food is time-intensive and sometimes frustrating, learning the process can create an invaluable relationship with your food, and one that may ultimately lead to positive changes elsewhere in your life. Growing your own vegetables can be very rewarding, not to mention the concrete economic benefits of starting your own garden. Blogger J.D. Roth on popular site getrichslowly.org kept track of his gardening expenses versus the net worth of the produce he harvested, and found that his 60 hours of work and $318.43 spent ultimately saved him $606.97. In summary, gardening may not only lead to a more knowledgeable and healthier you, it may also lead to a bigger savings account. Starting on a small gardening project is probably a good idea, so as to not overwhelm yourself.
Gardening should not feel like you’re burdening yourself with a process to produce something you’ll have to force yourself to consume. You’re not filing a tax-return, you’re sowing seeds to grow an array of delicious food options. Decide what you want to grow and how much actual spare time you have to spend on this life-giving project. If vegetables are not particularly palatable to you, try herbs, fruits, or tubers. If you reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, you’re lucky enough to be in a climate that allows you to grow almost anything.
It’s the end of April -- is it too late to start a garden this spring?
As anyone with passion knows, ‘now’ is always the best time to begin! At this point, you can start growing summer crops right away in your newly tilled designated area (e.g. tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc.), and leave the early spring crops (e.g. peas, onions, carrots, radishes, etc.) for either the fall or next spring. As a novice gardener, you may want to start an indoor garden first so that you have a more controlled environment to work in, before transplanting them to an outdoor location; this two-stage approach will also allow you to get started with the fun of planting while at the same time focusing on conditioning the soil in your outdoor plot.
What are some things I should know before I get started?
Continue reading this article on our website to learn about soil, location, plant type, drainage, compost, pest control, weeds, tools, and more. Happy planting and harvesting!
by Jenni Chan
ECO FUN!
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Test Your Farming Smarts
Agriculture makes up a huge labor force in the world and the majority of some countries’ economies. We all depend on agriculture to sustain our livelihoods, regardless of how connected we feel to it. How much do you know about agriculture? Take this month’s eco-quiz to flex your knowledge.
1. About what percentage of the U.S. population is comprised of farm and ranch families?
a. 2% b. 8% c. 12% d. 17.5% 2. Which country has the highest wheat consumption? Which country has the highest wheat production?
a. China, India b. India, China c. United States, China d. China, China 3. How many hectares of tropical rain forest are deforested in South America for agricultural purposes annually? (estimated in the last decade)
a. 40 hectares b. 400 hectares c. 4,000 hectares d. 4 million hectares 4. What percentage of U.S. grown soybeans are genetically engineered?
a. 71% b. 81% c. 91% d. 95% 5. Which crop is considered the “dirtiest” due to the high amount of pesticides used to produce it?
a. Corn b. Cotton c. Apples d. Soybeans
Answers: 1. a, 2. d, 3. d, 4. c, 5. b
Sources:
The Voice of Agriculture. "Social." The Voice of Agriculture. American Farm Bureau Federation, 2012.
Agriculture, United States Department of. "Grains Wheat Consumption Statistics - Countries Compared - Nationmaster." NationMaster.com. NationMaster, 2003.
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety. "What Kinds of Health Effects Are Associated with Pesticides?" Pesticides. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety, 18 Nov. 2010.
The Center for Food Safety. "Genetically Engineered Crops." Crops. The Center for Food Safety, 2013.
Organic Trade Association. "Cotton and the Environment." Organic Trade Association. N.p., 2011.
"World Map with Top Ten Countries by Wheat Production." World Map. Maps of World, 2012.
BAGT WISH LIST
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At the top of our wish list are laptop computers and possibly a desktop computer -- preferably MACs. This would be a tax-deductible donation since BAGT is a non-profit organization. Thank you for your consideration!
BAGT GRATITUDE -- THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS!
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Thank you to the following people and organizations who have supported our work in a variety of unique and important ways:
▪ John Michaels - for his eagle eye editing ▪ Kari Wrede - for her beautiful graphic arts donation ▪ Robert Girling - for hosting our new intern Jenna when she arrived from Finland ▪ Jorge Saldana and Cancun Restaurant - for their generous discount on food ▪ Jay Golden of Walking Star Studio - for his coaching regarding storytelling about our work ▪ Roger Lloyd Lang and VORA - for their very generous van loan ▪ Dignity of Man Foundation - for their donation of a spectacular retreat site ▪ Leonard Adler, Green Jobs Network - for his ongoing support and invaluable website advice
Bay Area Green Tours Mission
We provide educational tours and events that demonstrate the sustainable economy in action, inspire support of local green businesses, and empower people to incorporate environmental responsibility and social justice into their personal and professional lives.
Tax Deductible Donation Request
In order to be sustainable ourselves we need to rely on grants, sponsorship and donations.
Please consider making a tax deductible donation to our 501(c)3 to help connect more people to solutions for our future. Your donation can help get more students into the field to witness potential jobs for their future!
Here are ways you can help support our mission: Donate through Paypal on our website here (The Donate button is in orange, on the right.)
Send a check to 2150 Allston Way Suite 280, Berkeley, CA 94704
Become a sponsor: please contact Marissa@bayareagreentours.org
