THE GREEN LABEL PROGRAM BEGINS IN NAPA

Farmers and environmentalist have met to develop a program that would

provide the opportunity for farmers to advertise that they meet our standards

for sustainable agriculture. Laurel Marcus from Fish Friendly Farming in

Sonoma County is preparing a proposal to adopt that program to Napa County,

and she is currently revising her proposal to take advantage of existing

resources and fund it through grants.

This process, once begun, will require a Technical Advisory Group which will

meet seven or eight times over a year to define the program. It may take

several years for a farm to make the changes necessary to meet the standards

that we set. It also needs to incorporate the ability to change as new

information becomes available. And we need to identify funding sources that

will allow farmers to participate more quickly than they might be able to if

they had to finance the changes themselves.

The programmatic nature of these endeavors will require a Working Group

to oversee the process on a long term continuous basis, to evaluate and

implement changes, and sort out the gray areas as issues evolve.

The Napa Group, along with Napa/Solano Audubon Society, Friends of the Napa

River, the Napa County Agriculture Commissioner, the Napa County Farm Bureau,

Napa Valley Grapegrowers, Napa Valley Vintner's Association, Napa Valley

Winegrowers, and others have met three times since early December of last

year. Our collective long term goal is to set standards for sustainable

agriculture in Napa County. Our short term task is to create the framework

to define and implement a program.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Chris Malan at

233-7434 or Tyler York at 942-8374.