Chair Jeff Cogen
County C.R.O.P.S.
August 16, 2010
Visit the new CROPS blog: web.multco.us/crops.
County CROPS (Community Reaps Our Produce and Shares) is a project led by Chair Cogen to grow produce for low-income county residents on previously vacant county-owned land in Troutdale.
Since then-Commissioner Cogen got the Board of Commissioners’ approval for the project in summer 2009, the two-acre “farm” has yielded thousands of pounds of organic produce for hundreds of low-income county residents.
Volunteers from Hands On Greater Portland and the county’s Community Service Program (which offers people who have committed non-violent, low-level crimes the opportunity to pay their debt to society through community service) provide the labor for the farm; the Oregon Food Bank distributes its harvest.
County CROPS, Cogen says, “creatively [leverages] existing resources [to] put fallow land back into production while providing a source of healthy, fresh food to hungry people.”
The project also acts as a model of local food production, which helps
- reduce carbon emissions by decreasing the distance motor vehicles travel to transport food from farms to grocery stores
- lower obesity rates by increasing access to nutritious food
- strengthen the local economy by keeping money spent on food in circulation locally
Related stories:
- Italian Heart: A sweetheart of a tomato (June 7, 2010)
- County CROPS update: Check out our new blog (August 9, 2010)