Conversations

I am interested in working with farmers who have small to medium sized deliveries between Sac/West Sac and the East Bay. I farm in Rio Linda and have a "day job" in Albany during the week. I leave Albany on Thursdays around noon and return to the East Bay from Sac on Sunday night (usually between 9-10pm due to horrific traffic conditions on 80 on Sundays).

Eventually I want to move to the Sac part of the world, but for this season, this schedule is a given. I have a full bed 4x4 extended cab Toyota Tacoma truck that can be filled to capacity as needed. Presently it remains empty which seems a waste.

This could be a great situation for someone with orders that need to be in the East Bay on Monday mornings.

Hot off the presses: the first blog in our mini-series interviewing a few respected leaders in the CA sustainable farming and agriculture movement who recently retired to a life of a bit more free time and freedom! In our first post, we share highlights (+ full transcript) from our conversation with Shermain Hardesty, former Director of the UC Small Farm Program.

Click to peruse her reflections on the past 30 years serving CA farmers and pontifications on the future of sustainable farming in California, including what new farmers should be tracking most closely, the future of Cooperative Extension, the role small farmers have in our future food system, and more... Enjoy!

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Hot off the presses: the first blog in our mini-series interviewing a few respected leaders in the CA sustainable farming and agriculture movement who recently retired to a life of a bit more free time and freedom! In our first post, we share highlights (+ full transcript) from our conversation with Shermain Hardesty, former Director of the UC Small Farm Program.

Click to peruse her reflections on the past 30 years serving CA farmers and pontifications on the future of sustainable farming in California, including what new farmers should be tracking most closely, the future of Cooperative Extension, the role small farmers have in our future food system, and more... Enjoy!

Hi there,

My name is Madeline Power. I am a film producer and currently working on a documentary about the renewable energy efforts in the state of California. I am looking for an EV tractor to use as a prop in one of the scenes. Does anyone have any suggestions or have an EV tractor they would be willing to let us use? Would be open to paying a rental fee. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or resources. Feel free to email me at Maddy@crsvrlab.com

Thank you!

Good Morning Ya'll,

My name is Jacob Roberson and I am the Food Safety Regional Lead for Tulare, Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties for a non-profit organization called Community Alliance with Family Farmers (new to Fresno area). CAFF is well established all over California except for the Central Valley which is where I am based out of (Fresno to be exact). I wanted to use this post as a source to contact farmers who are struggling with food safety and cannot afford to hire an outside consultant to come to their farm, perform assessments, help with documentation, and get their farm ready for a 3rd party audit. I perform the same duties as an outside consultant but my service is no cost to the farmer. CAFF is a non-profit organization looking to better food safety standards and procedures practiced on small farms / farms at a disadvantage (financial hardships, language barriers, new farmers, etc.).

Food

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Good Morning Ya'll,

My name is Jacob Roberson and I am the Food Safety Regional Lead for Tulare, Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties for a non-profit organization called Community Alliance with Family Farmers (new to Fresno area). CAFF is well established all over California except for the Central Valley which is where I am based out of (Fresno to be exact). I wanted to use this post as a source to contact farmers who are struggling with food safety and cannot afford to hire an outside consultant to come to their farm, perform assessments, help with documentation, and get their farm ready for a 3rd party audit. I perform the same duties as an outside consultant but my service is no cost to the farmer. CAFF is a non-profit organization looking to better food safety standards and procedures practiced on small farms / farms at a disadvantage (financial hardships, language barriers, new farmers, etc.).

Food safety is a growing concern and I believe every farmer should have GAPs (Good Agriculture Practices) established on their farm/ranch even if they are not covered by the new FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) produce and preventive facilities rule.

If you feel my free service may benefit you and/or your company, do not hesitate to contact me. My phone number is 559-730-8435 and email is jacob_roberson@outlook.com. If you prefer, you can contact me through farmsreach as well but I would prefer the other two methods of contact (phone and email).

If you know of someone who could benefit from my service as well, please give them my contact information.

Best Wishes,

Jacob Roberson

Dear farmers!

We're a small team on a big mission - to make precision agriculture concepts affordable and accessible to even the smallest of farmers. We need some input to be smarter about what we're building.

Our name is Farm Dog (http://farmdog.ag/) and we'll gladly send a Farm Dog hat to the first 50 people that will answer the 25 questions in this survey form: http://goo.gl/forms/88SywcPrlt

Yours,

Michael Hermon

Co-founder and CTO

Farm Dog

Hello Everyone,

Over the past few years almost all my marketing has been done directly through me to CSA customers and particular local restaurants. We are in the process of expanding the farm and looking towards having excess in the future much beyond what our local CSA and current restaurants are consuming.

So today my main questions are, 1. Does anyone have any experience with any local/ semi-local distributors or wholesalers in Northern California? 2. Good or Bad experiences? please elaborate. 3. Do they pay fair prices? 4. Who if anyone would you recommend? 5. What kind of food safety and insurance hurdles did you have to deal with to land these larger accounts?

I know we have a lot of experience on the boards here, and I am sure I am not the only one with the issue of growing more food and trying to figure out how to best sell it outside of their local markets without selling out to the big man and making stupidly low returns?

Thanks in advance,

-Kevin Nowell

Hi all,
Thanks very much supporting Sonoma County's regional food hub, FEED Sonoma, in our crowdfunding campaign! We're fundraising for a new truck so we can continue to support local farmers by selling even more of their chemical-free produce.

Farmers in our network are doubling and tripling sales by working with us, but our trucks are old and unreliable. With a sturdy truck we can deliver more harvested-to-order produce along more diverse routes.

We are closing in on the halfway mark of our campaign, and we're almost half-funded.

http://igg.me/at/feedsonoma

Check out the many new perks just added, including bulk squash, juicing apples, eggs, seaweed, and more, along with great restaurant gift certificates.

And take a look at our new website! http://www.feedsonoma.com

Thank you!

Hub Camp

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Hub Camp

How are meat producers in the North Bay or North Coast getting whole carcasses to restaurants and butcher shops in San Francisco or the Bay Area in general? We were getting pigs and lambs butchered at Rancho in Petaluma and Panizzera in Occidental respectively, and having Golden Gate Meat in Santa Rosa haul the whole carcasses to our buyer in SF. However, Golden Gate Meat recently told us that they are not doing that kind of distribution anymore. Does anyone know of someone who can pick up these kind of deliveries? In the past, it has not made sense for us to do our own deliveries as we are in Mendocino County, the slaughterhouses/processors are in Sonoma County, and our restaurant markets are further south. Thanks.

I need help managing my drivers' expenses on diesel/gas!