Farmer Services, Farmer Field Day
Lydia Hsu
FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: CLIMATE SMART GRAZING ...

The Winter Farmer Series consisted of in-person networking and educational events hosted at farms across Georgia in February and March. These farmer field days took place in lieu of the annual Georgia Organics Conference & Expo, which has evolved to engage regenerative farm and food advocates across the U.S. Southeastern region under the moniker “SOWTH.”

FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: CLIMATE SMART GRAZING & PASTURE MANAGEMENT
Farmer Services, Farmer Field Day
Paul Sorah
ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: ...

On February 19, 2024, Georgia Organics kicked off the Winter Farmer Series with a Collective Organic Purchasing and Accessing Organic Markets Organic Growers Farmer Field Day in Keysville, Georgia. This Farmer Field Day, in particular, highlighted the strength that collective farming and selling models have in accessing more markets.  

ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: Collective Organic Purchasing & Accessing Organic Markets
Racial Equity
Communications

Last May, we engaged multiple organizations for anti-racism audits, ultimately choosing Widerstand Consulting, whose process involves document review and focus groups with staff, board, farmers, and partners to inform necessary changes.

“ ...together we will find a way to not just be allies but accomplices in the work of anti-racism. ” — Alexis Chase A MESSAGE FROM ALEXIS CHASE
Farmer Services, Farmer Field Day
Lydia Hsu
ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: ...

Georgia Organics hosts a series of educational workshops, Organic Growers Farmer Field Days (OGFFDs), as part of the Farmer Services GO Organic! program to provide a portfolio of services geared specifically towards transitioning and Certified Organic farmers. 

ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: Building Cooperative Organic System Models + 2023 Georgia Certified Organic Network (GCON) Program
Lydia Hsu
ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: Raising ...

At Grateful Pastures Farm — the only Certified Organic poultry farm in Georgia — field day attendees took an autumnal farm tour while learning about pasture management and, later, the importance of record keeping.

ORGANIC GROWERS FARMER FIELD DAY RECAP: Raising Profits & Organic Livestock

Community Collaboration

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Farm To ECE Success In An Urban Setting

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Guest blog contributors Cherie L.B. Trice and April Mixon

Cherie L.B. Trice is the Director of Development at Greenbriar Children’s Center and has a Master of Arts and is a Certified Trust and Fiduciary Advisor (CTFA). April Mixon is the Food Coordinator at Greenbriar Children’s Center. Both are Savannah-based.

All images courtesy of the authors.

Greenbriar Children’s Center is excited to be recognized as one of the first ECE Farmer Champions with Georgia Organics!   

In addition to other programs for children and families, Greenbriar provides two quality-rated early childhood education programs for children ages six months to five years, primarily from very low-income families.

On average, one in five people in Savannah lives below the poverty level. The number is even higher for children under the age of five. Following Federal Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) guidelines, Greenbriar provides breakfast, lunch, and a healthy snack for all children in our early learning programs. 

In the Spring of 2022, we launched an initiative to provide fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables to our centers via a partnership with the Forsyth Farmers Market—the largest regional market in our area. 

The team recognized that the brains and bodies of young children grow at a rapid rate. They must receive essential nutrients to support this critical time of growth to support positive health outcomes into adulthood. We know that an increased intake of fresh produce can help to reduce the risk of childhood obesity and complications that may arise later in life, including Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, and stroke. Under-resourced areas, which often have reduced access to grocery stores that provide fresh produce, face a higher risk for these health risks.  

Our partnership with the farmers market allows us to purchase fresh, locally-grown (and often organic) produce every week.

To expand our knowledge around this work, we have become a member of the Georgia Farm to Early Care and Education Coalition. To date, we have participated in various programs with fellow coalition members, including Quality Care for Children (QCC) and Georgia Organics.   

We have participated in the Georgia Early Care and Education Harvest of the Month campaign and, most recently, the Georgia Organics #SpinachtoWinit campaign.  

Spinach To Win It inspired us to give our children a tasty opportunity: to grow spinach and sample the leafy green in a variety of ways. We love the spinach pizza, spinach pesto, and other offerings we created!

In October, we also offered a parent-child nutrition night, informing parents about our efforts to provide their children with fresh, locally-grown produce every week.

We must recognize that low-income families often rely on low-cost, heavily processed food to feed their families. The two meals per day provided by childcare centers may be the most complete meals that a child in an under-resourced area receives. 

These meals must be as nutrient-dense as possible to provide the healthiest beginning possible for every child. And, getting to support local farmers to achieve this important work helps us feel even more connected to our community.

Learn more about Greenbriar Children’s Center at greenbriarchildrenscenter.org.  

You can also follow them on Instagram (@greenbriarsav), Twitter (@GreenbriarCCSAV), and Facebook (@GreenbriarChildrensCenter)

Contact their Director of Development Cherie L. B. Trice at ctrice@greenbriarchildrenscenter.org. 

To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit georgiaorganics.org and follow us on social media @GeorgiaOrganics. 

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New Guest Post! School Garden-to-Market: Wonder Isn’t Just for Kids 

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By Dawn Grantham 

Dawn Grantham is a Partner in Education consultant at Columbus State University. 

Note: Because of its supportive principal, Dr. Dawn Jenkins, and its ingenuity in organizing a school garden with very little outside resources, South Columbus Elementary School (SCES) was one of two schools in Columbus, Georgia, selected to participate in a school garden-to-market initiative as part of a USDA Farm to School Grant awarded to Georgia Organics. The grant required schools to partner with a local farmer, whose charge was to guide students in the planting, growing, harvesting, marketing and selling of produce grown on the school campus.  

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead, anthropologist, recipient of the Planetary Citizen of the Year Award in 1978. 

One happy Market Day participant. Photo credit, all images: Jenna Shea Photojournalism.

We met in the school’s library. We sat in child-friendly chairs, that cut slightly across our lower backs, at child-friendly tables, where our bent knees either nudged the table underside or rested at the table edge. We talked. We planned. We brainstormed. We scheduled.  

Here, we gathered: the local farmers, the assistant principal and four classroom teachers, a supportive parent, the school district’s nutritionist, the grant representative, the local extension agent, and me. We formed the school garden-to-market committee, known as Eagles Go Green! (EGG!).  

For an hour, once a month from November 2021 to May 2022, we emphasized hands-on opportunities for students with the farmers, and we created lists of experts from the community to invite to the school to tie their knowledge of agricultural and environmental practices to curriculum state standards. In our meetings, we agreed to survey students and staff to direct our course. We reserved dates to dig, plant, harvest, play, and to celebrate.

For promotional purposes, we approved a kick-off event, video productions, scheduled photographers, and a t-shirt design. For fun, and because we valued fine arts, we outlined the integration of an art project. We met and we talked and planned and we brainstormed, and very early in our collaboration, we quickly forgot that cultivating a school garden is hard work.  

We let go, and we leaned in. We each yielded and stepped up into the ebb and flow of a collaborative process, trusting wherever it took us. Our personal visions retreated as the project took on its own life. And, whatever our initial apprehensions – perhaps, it was the time commitment, or the expansive scope of the school-to-market project, even the challenge of managing 313 students – they dissolved.  

Farmer Jenn Collins helps with a selection of seeds. Photo credit Jenna Shea Photojournalism.

Some small miracles occurred. Funding from the grant allowed the farmers to plant a campus orchard of fruit trees and bushes, an item that had been on the school’s wish list for years. In working alongside the farmers and through easy conversations and simple gardening instructions, students began talking about careers in agriculture.

Because of the students’ curiosity and willingness to participate, Assistant Principal Vicci Griffin noted that EGG! “extended the four walls of the classroom allowing a natural gradual release of learning”; Principal Dawn Jenkins shared that it “was a dream come true” because the development of EGG! brought her students and the school to a level of real-world learning.

What we all plainly saw as significant in the unfolding of the school garden-to-market experience was an element of awe not only among the students but also among the adults, who were brought back into the hold of wonder and learning. It's amazing how beautiful vegetables are when you truly see them again for the first time: color, shape, aroma, taste, texture. 

On Friday, May 13, 2022, a combined EGG! Market Day and Field Day took place at South Columbus Elementary School.

Jenna Mobley, photographer and Georgia Organics contributor, captured beautiful faces, focused efforts, and generous spirits of the market experience through her photographs.  

In collaboration with the EGG! student marketing team, coached by school paraprofessional, Jakira Palmer, Farmer Brad Barnes and Farmer Jenn Collins, the married team of Dew Point Farms, organized an attractive market display of produce from both the school’s garden and from their farm. The students made well over their monetary goal of $200. 

Across the sidewalk, art teacher Alexandra Countryman reminded students of their study of local artist, Alma Thomas, and then gave painting instructions while UGA Extension Agent, Ashley Brantley, and Jada Bone, Muscogee County School District’s nutritionist, fitted students into smocks. Shelia Brown, a master gardener volunteer, helped direct paint strokes on the two community canvases; Muscogee County School District's Content Specialist for Art Education, Dr. McCullough, offered district support. 

Principal Jenkins and 5th grade teacher Patrice Blassingame, with a bird's eye view of the field, kept the flow of shoppers, artists, spectators and athletes on schedule and in the right place. 

The SCES staff, led by their EGG! Committee colleagues, Amanda Joiner, Patrice Blassingame, and Deidre Howell, visibly supported the school garden-to-market project from beginning to end.  

And, Kimberly Della Donna and Kimberly Koogler of the Georgia Organics Farm to School program, were both on the EGG! Market Day scene to join in the celebration of farmers, young and seasoned. 

In organizing South Columbus Elementary School’s school garden-to-market experience, EGG!, it was easy to make an agenda and keep people to their speaking parts. We easily recognized that a garden’s success requires effort and time to experiment; it requires specific tools and materials and growing strategies, and it requires committed people. But, what was a little more challenging, and certainly out of any one individual’s control, was the development of synergy that came with the understanding and appreciation that the project was bigger than any one of us. Again, we learned to trust the process, and in doing so, we established an expectation, relied on the skill sets of new friends, and faced a daunting project together.  

The wonder of it all! 

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Farm to School Innovation Mini-Grant Highlight: Addressing Health Equity through Farm to School Programs 

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By Kimberly Della Donna 

Kimberly Della Donna is the Farm to School Director at Georgia Organics   

Georgia Organics and the Georgia Department of Public Health (GA DPH) have partnered to establish the Farm to School Innovation Mini Grants Program. These funds support farm to school initiatives that:  

  • Increase access to local, fresh, organically grown food,  

  • Include culturally responsive food and education,  

  • Increase local food procurement,  

  • And/or benefit Georgia-certified organic farmers in other ways.  

To learn more about the Farm to School Innovation Mini-Grant Program click here.  

To financially support the Farm to School Innovation Mini-Grant, click here  

We are pleased to highlight Mini-Grant Awardee:

Douglas County School System (DCSS) 

DCCS Training and Development Manager Tempest Harris’ work includes championing an award-winning, district-wide farm to school program. Last summer, she created and developed the Farm to School Expo initiative with the help of internal and community stakeholders.

While DCCS had success for many years in infusing local foods in meals, promotions, and taste tests throughout the district, they recognized that not all schools in the district had comprehensive food education programs.

They developed a Farm to School Expo to address the inequity of that disparity and strengthen the farm to school program district-wide.  

Students were invited to participate in the First Farm to School Expo where they could meet various farmers from their community, learn about what they produce, explore animals, bees, butterflies, and composting, meet community partners who support agriculture education, and enjoy taste tests of traditional Ghanian foods such as Bissap, Jollof, and Kelewele. Students also received a “take-home bag" loaded with educational materials, seeds, guidance for growing foods at home, information on local farmers' markets and local farmers', and food resources. The resources empowered students to increase their knowledge of food sourcing and access points for fresh food. 

The exposure that the Expo offered administrators, staff, and students to the benefits of active farm to school programs increased interest in and demand for food and agriculture education in Douglas County Schools that currently don’t have those programs.

One attendee noted, “I would like to expose students to growing their own food. There are many agricultural paths that students can study to make our food better as well. Hopefully, students will see the importance of farming to our world.” With so many community partners and farmers involved in the event, community support seems ripe to satisfy the demand. In the words of one attendee “This was a wonderful experience for both the students and myself.”  

To learn more about Douglas County School Systems, visit dcssga.org/departments/school_nutrition  and follow them on social media  and at facebook.com/ douglascountyschools.