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| Farm fresh produce at Vancouver Food Co-op |
I’ve been looking for a centralized meeting place among
local community supported farms in Southwest Washington…a one-stop website
where consumers can quickly locate farm specific items. SW WA CSA Farms has a website
where many of our local farmers are listed. The website includes basic
information about how the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program works.
The SW WA CSA Farms site
is a starting place, but it is not interactive. It provides contact information.
Only. In order to find out each farm’s features, a person would have to
personally interview each and every CSA in Southwest Washington. I did manage
to visit two farms so far, Northwest
Organic Farm and Inspiration
Plantation. (See previous posts), but the big project will take time.
Clark County needs an informational hub now, today. Our renewed
interest in community interaction and local food production has engendered a need
for cohesive, interactive information about local farm products. Nationally,
Americans are trending back from social isolation toward a renewed sense of
community, and many wonderful information hubs are cropping up. Kirk Wright
wants the Vancouver Food Cooperative
to become that communications hub for Southwest Washington's self-sustaining local farmers and consumers.
Wright, President of Vancouver Food Cooperative (VFC), in
an interview this week, said that while farm fresh produce, dairy and meat
products are not their only interests, these products are high in priority at
the co-op, and he thinks VFC can help local producers succeed.
As Wright sees it, a dynamic, informative website is an
essential part of economic success in today’s world. Besides providing local
producers a conveniently located storefront for their products, Wright says a
strong web presence is an essential component in linking interested consumers
with local producers. VFC is revamping and upgrading its web presence right now.
Wright sees a dynamic web presence as key to the co-op's future as well as
being important for local farmers.
Through a VFC supported blog feed, farmers could make crop
announcements when specific crops are ready to sell, other community programs
could announce their events, and co-op members could work out co-op related
communications.
Besides blog feeds, co-op volunteers dream of fact sheets
for each co-op item, including links to additional information and recipes. Azure Farms quinoa,
for example, is one of the world's "wonder foods". People want to put
quinoa on their tables but have no idea how to incorporate it into tasty menus.
Wright says that with cooking guidelines and links to tried and tasty
recipes, more people would turn quinoa into a staple of their weekly diets,
and come back to the VFC website for more. He said, “I want the VFC website to
provide this kind of information for all its products, including in depth
information on local farmers’ goods.”
Because the co-op and its website development is volunteer
dependent, it takes time for ideas to turn into action. While volunteerism for
the co-op is on the upswing, farmer involvement in the co-op has not yet
increased as much as Wright hoped it would. "Local farmers are
quirky," he said, "While some are anxious to get involved with one
another and with our co-op, others are very private and avoid contact with the
public."
VFC opened its new, larger, more central location at 1002
Main Street last fall, allowing the co-op to expand its inventory and be more assessable
to the public. In order to promote local food production, about 25 percent of
VFC's square footage is set aside for locally produced fruits and vegetables. The
acquisition of a large two-door cooler has increased the co-op's efficiency,
and they hope to add a display freezer with glass doors in order to better
display locally grown meats as well as an open-air refrigerated produce display
case.
"Growth has been phenomenal," says Wright, "We
started our first storefront with an inventory of a couple of hundred items and
now we're up to a well-stocked store of nearly two thousand different
products." Wright attributes the co-op’s progress mainly to its
volunteers. Part of the upturn is because
Astoria Cooperative, a highly successful food co-op in Astoria, Oregon,
recently donated a number of bulk food bins to VFC. “The bins provide us with a
safe and sanitary way to offer grains, seeds, nuts and cereals,” Wright reports.
Another reason for the co-op’s success is because the USDA has identified downtown
Vancouver as a "food
desert," meaning that downtown residents lack adequate access to
quality groceries. VFC allows residents, many without cars, to walk to
the co-op rather than going grocery shopping on public transit or being limited
to convenience store fare.
Seating before a stylish hardwood counter at the front of the
store gives Wright special pride. “It is the heart of the store,” he says, “a
place where community can meet.” Whether Vancouver Food Cooperative will become
Vancouver’s farm-product information center depends on community members,
farmers and volunteers. If you want to help, co-op staff will be happy to hear
from you.
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