VEGGI Farmers Cooperative

We’re applying for a grant to help some more folks involved with VEGGI! Video created by Nguyen Nguyen and Narrated by Nguyet Nguyen.

We’d like to welcome our newest member Jen Vo. Jen has a passion for growing and all things natural. She will help our whole cooperative grow and as a young person, will be able to learn a lot from our other members. Here she is describing herself and her connection with food and health:

My name is Jenifer Vo and I am a new team member here at Veggi Farm Cooperative. The following is a little introduction about myself. New Orleans is home, I was born and raised here. I graduated from the University of New Orleans with a bachelor in Business Administration. Growing up in my native community, Algiers, I’ve dove into the delicious wild taste buds of seafoods and drowned in sugary junk foods. As my mind and curiosity for life grew, I noticed my body and health were declining and I found myself in the hospital annually because of illnesses that left me puzzled. Staying active is essential to our health and that was already part of my daily lifestyle, so I thought I was healthy, but I was far from it. While doing self research on Google and Youtube, I came across mind cultivating information expressing the importance of the human body and its’ correlation to plants. I had no choice nor idea and that changing my eating habits would drastically improve my life. Like cutting out processed sugars and consuming more fruits and vegetables. By implementing the new profound ancient knowledge, I have manage to sustain a healthy body and mind. My passion is to revolve myself around vegetables and fruits and learn how to organically farm them. To be an advocate for health. The human body and Earth are sacred and we should take care of our homes.

Hey everyone! We want to give you an update on what’s been going on at our farm this past season. We’ve got a lot of exciting happenings around the farm and some events coming up this summer. Here are a few things we’ve been doing:

Our farmers Bac Thanh and Chu Phuc have finished building the processing facility on our main farmsite. This facility will allow our farmers to process, clean, and package their produce to be ready to be sold. It also allows the farmers a space for shelter from the hot New Orleans summer. The processing facility has been a goal for us for almost a year, and with financial support from the USDA and the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of Peoples grant, we were able to complete the building this June.

There are also a few new faces on the farm as well. Our partnership with Kids ReThink New Orleans schools continues as the Food Justice Collective utilizes several rows on the farm to grow food and learn about food systems. The FJC’s major project this Srping and Summer is to release a decolonizing cookbook, bringing recipes from their different backgrounds to combat bland, industrialized food.

The FJC will hold a cookbook release and food demonstration event on July 15th, with location TBD. Be sure to check back here and on our social media outlets for updates on the event.

By Ron Triggs, Grade 8, Edgar P Harney Spirit of Excellence Academy, New Orleans

I have always lived in a food desert, meaning fresh and healthy food options are not readily available where I live. Instead, there’s a gas station corner store down the street from my house where most people buy food. At school, I want to see more fresh, healthy, culturally relevant foods in our school lunches. The New Orleans student of color population is at risk when it comes to eating nutritious and culturally relevant school meals. In Orleans Parish, an alarming 83.8% of public school students are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch compared to the national average of 48.1%. And, students eligible for free or reduced-priced are disproportionately students of color –88.1% of eligible students are Black.

Continue reading →

This month, VEGGI will be returning to the Crescent City Farmers Market on Thursday afternoons at the American Can Company. We haven’t had a stand at the market since June because of the heat, which restricted our crop varieties and harvest.

But now that the season is changing, we are seeing a lot of beautiful colors on our farm, with lots of veggies growing bountifully again. Because of this, we look to be back at the farmers market and hope to see all of you there.

We will have our usual salad mixes, tofu, soy milk, radish, turnips, beets, herbs, eggplant, etc. and we still collaborate with SUA to bring you great products grown in the lower 9th as well.

What’s new this season is that our youth led Food Justice Collective will have some of their produce for sale as well. They’ve grown eggplant and okra, and have their own reusable grocery bag that you can purchase right here on our website and pick up at the market (we’re working on being able to sell the bags at the market as well).

We started our CSA delivery program this summer as well, and a presence at the farmers market, we’ll be able to use the site as a pickup spot for anyone who orders our box. You can also order a box at the market if you’d like.

We’re excited to get back to the market and be able to connect with our customers directly. Please follow us on twitter @veggifarmcoop to know which day we will be there and in case we take a day off.

We are beginning a series of blog posts to update you guys on what goes on with our farm operation. There will be a new blog post every month so come back to stay up to date on everything VEGGI!

Here’s our first post for September 2015:

Last season, the farm team began book club nights with Masanobu Fukuoka’s One-Straw Revolution. We studied his self-developed philosophy on agriculture. The goal is to work more closely with nature to grow food, instead of working to dominate nature. Continue reading →

With the closure of Good Eggs New Orleans, we’ve received lots of questions on where you can order our tofu, soy milk, and produce. We had these items on Good Eggs for over two years and we appreciate all the people who have used the online market to buy our products.

Currently, we have all our flavors of tofu at both Hollygrove Market & Farm and at the New Orleans Food Co-op. Our soy milk and other products can be bought directly from us at the Crescent City Farmers Market on Thursdays starting in a few weeks (Late Summer). Some of our produce items will be available at the New Orleans Food Co-op later in the year as well.

We also currently offer a weekly CSA box that includes all of our in-season products including the option for tofu and soy milk. Click on the CSA tab above to find out more.

We’d like to thank the people at Good Eggs who allowed us to be more accessible to many of our customers. Going forward, we hope that our customers will be able to find our products as easily as possible through our current markets and CSA.

Thank you for your continued support!