{"id":419,"date":"2015-08-21T16:52:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T16:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/?p=419"},"modified":"2015-08-21T16:52:34","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T16:52:34","slug":"tales-from-the-specialty-crop-ambassadors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/?p=419","title":{"rendered":"Tales from the Specialty Crop Ambassadors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The CDFA Office of Farm to Fork is proud to introduce a new blog series <em>Tales from the Specialty Crop Ambassadors<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>As part of the Office\u2019s 2014-2015 CDFA Specialty Crop Block Grant we were able to partner with the Center for Land-Based Learning (CLBL) in Winters, CA to start the Specialty Crop Ambassador program.\u00a0 CLBL is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating the next generation of farmers and teaching California\u2019s youth about the importance of agriculture and natural resource conservation.<\/p>\n<p>The program offers an opportunity for CLBL <em>California Farm Academy<\/em> students, graduates, or incubator farmers to undertake projects which support consumption, education, and access to California specialty crops. Ambassadors\u2019 projects include work in one or more of the following areas (1) developing or furthering farm to school efforts through specialty crops (2) decreasing food insecurity and increasing access to nutritious food options through the use of specialty crops (3) promoting the farming of specialty crops as a career to the community or (4) increasing public awareness of the health and environmental benefits of specialty crop production.<\/p>\n<p>This year the Office is proud to have selected four fantastic Ambassadors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aimee Sisson<\/strong> is the farmer and founder of Root Cause Farm, <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-423 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Aimee.jpg\" alt=\"Aimee\" width=\"175\" height=\"199\" \/>an urban farm in West Sacramento, where she grows a variety of vegetables and melons.\u00a0 Aimee began farming as a way to increase access to healthy, affordable food, a passion that stems from her background as a public health physician.\u00a0 As part of CDFA&#8217;s Specialty Crop Ambassador Program, Aimee runs a Farmer in Training program for grade-school children who live in the neighborhood around Root Cause Farm.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-422 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Shayne.jpg\" alt=\"Shayne\" width=\"180\" height=\"158\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Shayne <\/strong><strong>Zurilgen<\/strong> is a former middle school science teacher from Stockton who moved to Davis a year ago to join Flyway Farm. For his specialty crop grant project he will be planting a small orchard of Pineapple Guava, raising bees for honey and pollination, and teaching the community about the health and environmental benefits of the Pineapple Guava.<\/p>\n<p><strong>McKenna Farms<\/strong> is a small farm located in Winters, California founded by Shane and Katherine McKenna. \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-421\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/McKenna.jpg\" alt=\"McKenna\" width=\"231\" height=\"154\" \/>Shane is a graduate of the California Farm Academy class of 2014 and Katherine is an Elementary educator.\u00a0 They are passionate about farming and educating future generations about the food system and stewardship of our natural resources.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-420\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Anna-Ruth.jpg\" alt=\"Anna-Ruth\" width=\"145\" height=\"218\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anna-Ruth Crittenden<\/strong> is the program coordinator for Farm-to-Mouth, which provides supported employment training for people with mental illness in Yolo County. Those who work for Farm-to-Mouth appreciate the training, as well as access to high quality vegetables they take home after work days. The 1\/2 acre garden is currently growing tomatoes, peppers, 2 varieties of basil, watermelons, okra, eggplant, popcorn, and 3 varieties of summer squash. Farm-to-Mouth is a grant-funded program, so this summer, they are launching a Farm Stand, and inviting community members to come by.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To hear more about their great work from the ambassadors themselves, keep an eye out for the upcoming episodes of <em>Tales from the Specialty Crop Ambassadors<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CDFA Office of Farm to Fork is proud to introduce a new blog series Tales from the Specialty Crop Ambassadors! As part of the Office\u2019s 2014-2015 CDFA Specialty Crop Block Grant we were able to partner with the Center for Land-Based Learning (CLBL) in Winters, CA to start the Specialty Crop Ambassador program.\u00a0 CLBL [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-farm-to-fork-website"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4z2wv-6L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdfa.ca.gov\/TalesFromTheField\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}