Taste Washington Day 2020 celebrates resilient farm to school connections

 Chris Iberle, Farm to School Lead

Common Threads Farm, Bellingham, school garden harvest.

The tenth annual Taste Washington Day may look a little different this year, but even with challenges associated with remote learning and COVID-19 precautions, it remains true to its mission of celebrating community, connecting students and farmers through school meals, and educating them about where their food comes from.

Across Washington State this year, schools, farms, children, families, school gardeners, agriculture educators, organizations and businesses have come together to support one another, showing strength and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges.

However school districts adapt their activities for Taste Washington Day, scheduled for Oct. 7, this special day highlights how they provide local food to students in school meals, learn in their schools’ gardens, and educate students about food and agriculture. 

Thirty-six school districts are signed up to participate so far, and working with dozens of Washington farmers and producers to buy food items and ingredients for their meals. School districts and farmers can still sign up online to be a part of the event and share their plans with WSDA.

School nutrition staff have showed heroic, creative, and inspiring efforts to overhaul their school meal programs since the COVID-19 pandemic turned school operations upside down. 

School nutrition programs continue to be a critical food access point providing millions of meals for many children, families and communities statewide, especially during the pandemic. School meals have also provided an opportunity for students to stay connected with their school. 

“Nutrition staff in our districts love greeting the kids when they pick up their meals,” said Janis Campbell-Aikens, Child Nutrition director at Auburn School District and president of the Washington School Nutrition Association. “They have been one constant for the kids, from before COVID-19, and through the spring and summer.”

Coupeville School District boxed pasta lunches with sauce
that includes Washington-raised meat.

New, unique meal needs

The Taste Washington Day theme this year is “What’s in the Bag or Box from Washington?” encouraging schools to feature at least one Washington-grown product in sack lunches or meal boxes distributed to students. 

Local Washington-grown foods have been filling schools’ new, unique needs, as farmers support schools with products that fit grab-and-go meals, such as lunchbox-sized apples or pears, individually wrapped hardboiled eggs, dried cherries, and snacking veggies for sack lunches. 

Schools offering multi-day “grocery box” or recipe kits have added local yogurt, cheese, potatoes, onions, rhubarb, broccoli, and bread to distribution boxes. Districts incorporating scratch cooking into new distribution models, such as prepared meals to heat and eat at home, have featured Washington-grown beef, vegetables, and other cooked ingredients.

Washington Apple Crunch goes virtual!

The Washington Apple Crunch will again be part of Taste Washington Day, albeit virtual this year. Teachers, students and parents are encouraged to participate in the Washington Apple Crunch, and bite into a Washington-grown apple at noon on Oct. 7, and make a statewide crunch to celebrate our state’s agriculture. 

WSDA partners with the Washington School Nutrition Association to organize Taste Washington Day, with support from Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Child Nutrition. Local nonprofits, parents, volunteers, and community partners also work to support Taste Washington Day. 

Together with schools and local farmers, we celebrate Washington agriculture and promote the nutritious foods being served in our schools.

Natural Resources Assessment Section awarded water quality protection grant

Chris McGann

Communications

 Marion Drain, an irrigation ditch that releases into the
 Yakima River, is one of the waterways NRAS tests for
 water quality. An EPA grant will help expand the program. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $200,000 grant for WSDA’s Natural Resources Assessment Section (NRAS), Wednesday. The award is part of a $2 million EPA distribution for 14 projects designed to help reduce and assess toxics affecting the Columbia River Basin watershed. 

The EPA grant funds an NRAS Pesticide Stewardship Partnership (PSP) pilot program that will collect water quality data and utilize local expertise to guide voluntary changes in pesticide use practices and ultimately improve water quality.

NRAS manager Gary Bahr said the grant helps further the important work already under way in the Columbia River Basin and around the state to monitor and improve water quality. 

The money also allows NRAS to expand its current work to the Palouse River and the Yakima River watershed where it will monitor surface water for agricultural pesticides, collect waste pesticides, and conduct targeted outreach in partnership with Conservation Districts.

“We will continue our work in the Yakima valley, where we have monitoring sites and have an active education and training program, Bahr said. “We’ll also begin new stream monitoring in the Palouse region in Eastern Washington, in partnership with the Palouse Conservation District.”

The watersheds were chosen because each is a unique agricultural production region in Washington and located upstream from critical habitat for species on the Endangered Species Act list. Sampling will look for more than 150 legacy and currently used pesticides, including DDT and its breakdown products. 

NRAS will partner with the WSDA Pesticide Management Division and Technical Services and Education Program (TSEP) for providing waste pesticide disposal collections, and pesticide education, applicator training, and sprayer calibration training. 

The Palouse Conservation District will collect the samples and work with NRAS to conduct outreach and promote pesticide applicator trainings and waste pesticide collection events.  The NRAS science group will lead the team to conduct coordinated work related to pesticide presence in the watershed and trends in pesticide usage, transport, and ways to protect water quality.

The grants are the first from the Columbia River Basin Restoration Funding Assistance Program which was established by Congress in 2016 as an addition to the Clean Water Act to reduce toxics that have long affected the health of the waters throughout the basin. 

Information about the other projects funded by the EPA grants for the Columbia River Basin watershed is available at the agency’s website. 

More information about NRAS and water quality monitoring in Washington State on WSDA’s website. 

 

Partnering with farmers to provide food assistance

Hector Castro
WSDA Communications 

The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and Northwest Harvest are working together to support family farms and families in need through a unique collaboration that provides 10,000 boxes weekly of fresh, local produce for food pantries.

Lon Inaba holds a box of assorted farm produce.

With funding from WSDA, Northwest Harvest has coordinated with Inaba Produce Farms in Wapato, where workers have been packing boxes with an assortment of fresh produce straight from the farm. Those boxes are then distributed through the non-profit's network of food pantries and other hunger relief outlets.

Since early June, Inaba Farms has packed nearly 100,000 boxes of produce.

"This is an opportunity to make sure we help those in need by getting them fresh produce, while at the same time helping to support Washington farms," WSDA Director Derek Sandison said. 

Recently, Director Sandison joined Thomas Reynolds, CEO of Northwest Harvest, and Carmen Méndez, the organization's agriculture procurement representative, to visit with owner Lon Inaba for a first-hand look at the produce packing operation. Local media also attended to view the operation. 

Director Sandison interviewed by KDNA radio.

Before the pandemic, an average of 1 in 6 people (about 1.15 million people) statewide received food from a WSDA Food Assistance hunger relief organizations. In Yakima County, the average had been 1 in 4.

But since the pandemic, there has been a 50 percent increase in need statewide and a 71 percent increase in Yakima County, not including data from people being served from programs outside of WSDA, such as school lunch programs or other federal assistance efforts.

At the same time, major sectors of the state food supply network were disrupted as restaurants and foreign markets shut down to slow the spread of COVID-19. This led to farmers losing many of their traditional customers.

By connecting small farms with hunger relief organizations, initiatives like the arrangement with Inaba Produce helps create a market for farmers while providing fresh produce to families in need. It is in keeping with other WSDA efforts in recent years that focus on linking farms directly to food distribution networks, like our state Farm to Food Pantry initiative and federal Farm to Food Bank program. 

Lon Inaba was only too happy to show his visitors the operation, and the line where his workers have been packing thousands of boxes weekly. On the day of the tour, the shipment of boxed produce had already left, but a few missed their ride on the truck.

Serrano chilis.

Inaba pulled one from a pallet and hefted the cardboard box to display the assortment of fresh produce packed inside potatoes, green peppers, onions and melon - all meant to feed a family in need.

Inaba Produce, a third-generation family operation established in 1907, has always been committed to sustainability and its community. It has survived three separate displacements including the Japanese Internment during WWII. These experiences have made the Inaba family intensely aware of the hardships that can befall families, especially minority communities, during times of national crisis.

Inaba Farms, like many Washington farm operations, demonstrate that it cares about feeding those in need and is playing a significant role in helping to address food insecurity in our state.

Visit WSDA's food access webpage for more information on the agency's food assistance programs. 

Boosting seafood exports to Vietnam virtually

Rebecca Weber and Elisa Daun 

International Marketing Program 

Washington seafood has faced some recent challenges, from trade issues with China to reduced demand from restaurant closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, opportunities for seafood have emerged, especially for Washington shellfish products and particularly in Vietnam. But travel restrictions have limited the ability for in-person meetings and activities like trade missions or visits to Washington from potential overseas customers.

Workers sorting mussels.

So WSDA’s International Marketing team looked for other opportunities where virtual tools could help exporters and importers connect.

We selected Vietnam as the first market to try out a virtual export-import visit. It has strong market potential and already ranks among the top 10 markets for Washington exporters. Our in-market representative was keen to work with us, and 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of resumed diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam.

We decided to kick off this initiative by working with a small group of companies that had worked with us before, since new programs have a higher potential for implementation challenges.

WSDA’s International Marketing Program typically has contractors in several countries who help us and Washington state businesses build markets and navigate import requirements. We worked with our contractor in Vietnam to set up an online matchmaking meeting in late June to help Washington seafood exporters connect with Vietnamese seafood importers.

Trade mission goes online

For the event, we used a video conference platform that features “breakout rooms” allowing participants to hold side conversations. Four Washington export companies and six Vietnamese buyer companies participated, in addition to the WSDA International Marketing team—who spent quite a few hours and practice sessions preparing for launch!

We compiled buyer and supplier company profile information and provided to participants before the meeting, so companies could prepare by becoming familiar with each other.

The program kicked off at 5:30 p.m. in Washington state -- which is 7:30 a.m., the next day, in Vietnam. Everyone was a little outside their regular work hours, but all seemed happy to accommodate the time difference.

We began with all participants together in one session for introductions, a short market briefing, and an update on Vietnamese seafood trends. Then, we used the rest of our two and a half hours for one-on-one matchmaking meetings between participating buyer and supplier companies. Using the breakout room feature, importers and exporters were able to have direct conversations, with the WSDA team joining different sessions to assist as needed. In total, we facilitated 12 individual meetings.

The ability for companies to “meet” in “separate rooms” was well received and we learned a lot from this inaugural program that will improve similar programs in the future.

Future virtual visits

Although no transactions have yet resulted, several companies are corresponding with each other and conversations between them are continuing. The Vietnamese buyers are interested and eager to import Washington shellfish, such as live geoduck, oyster and king crab.

The Washington companies said they found the meetings valuable and worth their time, and all the businesses that participated expressed appreciation for the opportunity to meet, even online.

We are now planning for future similar encounters with new product sectors, such as fresh produce, dairy, and specialty beverages, as well as value-added products. We plan to try this again ourselves, but also working through our trade association, the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association.

Visit agr.wa.gov/international if you own or work for a business interested in learning more about our export assistance programs or future virtual export-import events.

Contrabando de productos agrícolas: una amenaza para las granjas, las huertas y el ecosistema

El viernes 24 de julio, el Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA, Departamento de Agricultura de Washington Sate) recibió dos denuncias, por separado, de residentes que recibieron semillas provenientes de China que no pidieron. En las etiquetas de los paquetes se indicaba que contenían joyas, pero dentro de ellos, los residentes encontraron semillas.

Asimismo, recibimos denuncias de personas que compraron semillas a un minorista en línea, pensando que las semillas eran de los Estados Unidos, pero cuando recibieron los paquetes por correo (algunos de los cuales también tenían etiquetas postales en las que se indicaban artículos que no eran semillas) se enteraron de que las semillas provenían de otro país.

La elusión de las reglamentaciones de importación de plantas y la evasión de las aduanas (por ejemplo, mediante el uso de etiquetas falsas en un paquete y la identificación incorrecta del contenido) con el propósito de introducir material vegetal en los Estados Unidos se conoce como contrabando de productos agrícolas y, además de ser una práctica ilegal, representa una amenaza grave para las granjas, las huertas, los animales y el medioambiente. 

• Podrían ser invasoras. No se permite el ingreso de determinadas plantas al país dado que se sabe que son invasoras y podrían competir con las plantas nativas.
• Podrían encubrir plagas y enfermedades. Las plantas y semillas pueden tener plagas de insectos o enfermedades que podrían devastar las plantas nativas que no poseen los medios para defenderse de ellas. Esto podría redundar en la pérdida de plantas o requerir un mayor uso de pesticidas para controlar estas amenazas.
• Podrían dañar el ganado. Algunas plantas son tóxicas para el ganado y otros animales, incluidos los seres humanos. Si se plantan, podrían ser perjudiciales para el ganado y otros animales.

Por estas razones, el ingreso de material vegetal a los Estados Unidos está estrechamente regulado por el United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, Departamento de Agricultura de Estados Unidos).

 

Qué deben hacer los residentes de Washington

El USDA les solicita a los residentes que coloquen estas semillas y sus empaques en una bolsa de plástico. Se debe colocar la bolsa en un sobre postal y enviarla al USDA para que esta entidad realice una investigación más detallada. Los residentes de Washington pueden enviar al USDA las semillas que sospechan que han ingresado ilegalmente al país, a la siguiente dirección:

USDA-APHIS-PPQ – Attn: Jason Allen
Seattle Plant Inspection Station
835 South 192nd Street, Bldg D, Ste 1600
Seatac, WA 98148

Quienes hayan plantado las semillas deben dejar las plantas donde están y comunicarse con la oficina del director estatal de Sanidad Vegetal del Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS, Servicio de Inspección Sanitaria de Animales y Plantas) para recibir orientación.

Previamente, antes de recibir estas directrices actualizadas, el WSDA les había indicado a los residentes que colocaran las semillas y las plantas que crecieron en bolsas dobles y las tiraran a la basura. Los residentes que tiraron las semillas no necesitan tomar ninguna otra medida.

Las preguntas sobre la entrega de semillas deben enviarse a la oficina del director estatal de Sanidad Vegetal del APHIS. 

¿Es conveniente quemar las semillas?

La quema de semillas no garantiza su eliminación. Esto se debe a que algunas semillas requieren fuego y humo para germinar, por lo que la quema de semillas desconocidas, de hecho, podría mejorar su capacidad de crecimiento. Si no se necesita fuego para ayudar a que una semilla germine, entonces, quemarla durante el tiempo suficiente podría hacer que la semilla se torne inviable. Sin embargo, es posible que una persona común no sea capaz de generar una cantidad suficiente de calor durante una cantidad suficiente de tiempo para eliminar la semilla sin un riesgo sustancial de incendiar otras cosas.

¿Es conveniente moler las semillas?

Sugerimos no abrir los paquetes de semillas en absoluto. Si los abre y coloca las semillas en una licuadora, por ejemplo, se podrían liberar hongos u otras enfermedades de las plantas.

Qué deben hacer los residentes de otros estados

Cualquier persona que se encuentre fuera de Washington State y reciba un paquete no solicitado de semillas provenientes de China, o de otros países, debe comunicarse con la oficina del funcionario estatal para la reglamentación de plantas o del director estatal de Sanidad Vegetal del APHIS. Conserve las semillas y el empaque, incluida la etiqueta postal, hasta que alguien del departamento de agricultura de su estado o del APHIS se comunique con usted para brindarle más instrucciones. No plante ni consuma semillas de orígenes desconocidos.

El Servicio de Inspección Sanitaria de Animales y Plantas (APHIS) del USDA tomó conocimiento de que existen personas en todo el país que recibieron paquetes con semillas no solicitadas provenientes de China. El APHIS está trabajando estrechamente con el Departamento de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza del Department of Homeland Security (Departamento de Seguridad Nacional) y los departamentos estatales de agricultura a fin de evitar el ingreso ilegal de semillas prohibidas y proteger la agricultura de EE. UU. de las plagas invasoras y las malezas nocivas.

Además del trabajo que realiza el APHIS del USDA, el personal del área de Protección de Plantas del WSDA también está trabajando con minoristas en línea para evitar que esto suceda en el futuro.

Agradecemos a todos los que denunciaron este problema, y les agradecemos por proteger las granjas, las huertas y el medioambiente de Washington contra plantas y plagas potencialmente dañinas.

27/07/2020 - Este blog se actualizó para agregar las secciones sobre la quema y la molienda de semillas.

29/07/2020 - Este blog se actualizó para incluir las nuevas instrucciones del USDA para los residentes acerca de lo que deben hacer con las semillas.