(From press release) The community missed its lazy Wednesday evenings in Central Park – the music, food and family fun. The Davis Farmers Market listened, and found a way to bring back its beloved Picnic in the Park.

Starting May 17, Picnic in the Park will return, and continue every Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m. through Sept. 13. A local band will play each night. There will be children’s entertainment, loads of food vendors, and plenty of opportunity to gather as a community. Late September through early May, Wednesdays swap back to a traditional farmers market, open 3 to 6 p.m.

Randii MacNear, executive director of the Davis Farmers Market Alliance, is thrilled. With a redesigned layout, it will be more manageable. “I’m so happy, because I really feel like we broke people’s hearts. There was no solution except to try to bring it back – if we could find a way.”

The new layout of the Wednesday market is designed for success. Food trucks will fill the patio area, and the band will play from the top of the stairs, facing the lawn. Patrons are encouraged to bring their own chairs and blankets for picnicking. Tables and chairs will no longer be provided.

During operating hours, the market will have an open-container permit, allowing patrons to consume alcohol on the grassy area, whether it’s a bottle of wine from Heringer Estates, or a beer they bought from a downtown brewery or from home.

By Roberta Millstein

Yesterday, I attended a wonderful event on the UC Davis campus.  The purpose of the event was to celebrate the new Environmental Humanities Designated Emphasis at UC Davis, and it brought together in conversation two renowned scholars, Donna Haraway (a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz) and Kim Stanley Robinson (an award-winning science fiction author who lives in Davis; the title of the event, “Ministries for the Future,” is also the title of one of Robinson’s recent books).  It was a wide-ranging, fascinating conversation – so popular that it was literally standing room only – that I can’t begin to summarize here (but you can watch online). 

Instead, I want to highlight two important and related points that Robinson made: one was about the purpose of the University of California and one was about regenerative agriculture.[1]

Students at Pioneer Elementary School plant lettuce in the fall that was harvested in winter and made into salads. (Meghan Covert Russell/Courtesy photo)

(From press release) Davis Farm to School recently awarded 22 garden grants ­– totaling more than $11,000 – to local schools.

The grants, announced on Jan. 23, promote student learning about plants, insects, soil, composting and growing fresh and tasty food. Students plant in mosaic planters, raised beds, landscaped areas and more. The school gardens support California’s academic standards and provide important hands-on learning experiences.

Funds for the grants were raised through its annual fundraiser, The Village Feast, which was in October at Great Bear Vineyards. The money enabled garden grants for every school in the Davis Joint Unified School District, as well as to private schools including Peregrine and Davis Waldorf.

Max Russell examines strawberries at the Harper Junior High School garden. His mom, Meghan, leads the Davis Farm to School program, part of the Davis Farmers Market Alliance. (Meghan Covert Russell/Courtesy photo)

Meghan Covert Russell, executive director of Davis Farm to School, said, “This is the first year that we have been able to provide garden grants to every DJUSD campus, a step to helping all school gardens achieve equity in their maintenance and ability to serve students.”

In addition to garden grants, Davis Farm to School offers farm field trips to DJUSD second graders, in cooperation with Fiery Ginger Farm; and Little Chefs Field Trips to third graders, in conjunction with The Davis Food Co-op.

DJUSD Superintendent Matt Best said, “We are incredibly thankful for our close partnership with Davis Farm to School. Their support continues to provide our students with incredible hands-on learning experiences at our schools, as well as opportunities to explore our area’s farms, and learn about the ways to help preserve our planet.”

Davis Farm to School supports garden-based education, farm visits for students, farm-fresh foods in school meals, and recycling and composting programs at all Davis schools, in partnership with DJUSD. DF2S is a project of the nonprofit Davis Farmers Market Alliance. For more information, visit https://www.davisfarmtoschool.org/.

By Susan Pelican

from James Corbett (check him out!):via Organic Consumers Association...

"As consumers of heavily processed, chemically treated, GMO-infested gunk, we in the modern, developed world have "solved" the problem of hunger that plagued our forebears since time immemorial by handing our food sovereignty over to a handful of corporate conglomerates.

The result of this handover has been the creation of a factory farming system in which genetically engineered crops are doused in glyphosate and livestock are herded into tiny pens where they live their entire lives in fetid squalor, pumped up with antibiotics and growth hormones until they are slaughtered and shipped off to the supermarkets and fast food chains....

But as bad as things may be, they're about to get even worse. As crisis after crisis disrupts the food supply, the "solution" to these problems has already been prepared. New technologies are coming online that threaten to upend our understanding of food altogether. Technologies that could, ultimately, begin altering the human species itself.”

Many of these are rolling in from Universities, including UC Davis (see the Sac Business Journal edition on new startups in the Sacramento Region) and include technological "advances" like Davis' Gotham Greens, (sold at Nugget in Davis)... -a high rise greenhouse which purports to save water (hydroponic) and land (??) AND is in PARTNERSHIP WITH UC DAVIS).

Know about this and invest your $ and your health in farmers markets, organic produce, eggs, milk, meat and bread.