SARE Announcement from Portland State University

In case you haven’t heard, we are very excited to share some news with you from “The Catalyst,” the newsletter of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies in the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning at Portland State University.

“The Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies, in partnership with OSU Extension, Cogan Owens Cogan, and the City of Damascus, has been awarded a $223,000 three-year grant from the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program of the USDA to create an assessment of the Portland region’s sustainable agriculture system, develop a needs assessment, and provide tools and strategies for growers and local governments, with a case study of small urban influenced farms near Damascus.”

Multnomah Food Summit

What a great day for food planning sponsored by the Multnomah Food Initiative. Two hundred people gathered on Saturday, May 1, 2010 for the Multnomah Food Summit to develop a framework of action and suggest multiple actions to engage the entire community. Cogan Owens Cogan facilitated the summit planning steering committee and the event. The summit focused on four interrelated goals:  healthy eating, food access and equity, the food economy and localizing the entire food system. The next steps will be to summarize and analyze the results of the summit and consider how all the partners can work together to achieve the goals for the community. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.