We've missed our dear Food Show listeners while on hiatus this summer. So to tide you over until September, Laura McCandlish will bring you an extended audio postcard on the effort to get Willamette Valley grass seed farmers to grow beans and grains for the local market.
Laura recently attended a Beans & Grain Project tour and dinner at the Hunton farm west of Junction City. The third-generation farm now grows wheat, teff and a variet of heirloom beans and lentils for the local market. Non-profits such as Eugene's Willamette Food & Farm Coalition and the Ten Rivers Food Web in Corvallis are driving to get these foods to the local market. Part of this audio postcard previously aired on the new Food for Thought show on KLCC-89.7 FM, the NPR affiliate in Eugene.
Then we hear a bit about this week's special Wheat Fleet event, where boaters will transport some of this local wheat down the Willamette, from Harrisburg to Corvallis. There at the Saturday Farmers' Market, participants will have a chance to grind flour, using an antique, hand-powered millstone. Organizer Mary Ann Jasper fills us in on the details.