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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (June 21, 2023)
June 21, 2023 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 ture to get the sheep that are going to help clear the land. By the end of the month we’ll have two sheep out there, we’re go- ing to be rotating around to help clear the invasive English ivy and Hima- layan blackberry that’s taking over the land. It’s a lot of money to get that infrastructure in place, which snowballs – fenc- “ rooms, but we just real- ly have the intention to give to communities of color. We’re really learn- ing our ancestors used to have this in their diets too. Campbell: Otter Paw Herbs is a culinary and medicinal herb-growing business. I’m growing a wide array of herbs that can be used either just as- We’re really learning our ancestors used to have this in their diets too. ing to get sheep, which means we’ll be able to clear more land, which means I have access to more land to grow, we have more land to offer other people to grow that isn’t covered in blackber- ry or ivy, so you don’t have to do a ton of labor when first you’re start- ing out. It really opened things up to do things the right way, to do things at a pace that feels good and is sustainable…As Black people who are used to scraping and figuring things out, it’s nice not to have to do that. Tell us about Otter Paws and Pharm to Body, two of the inaugural pro- grams at the collective. Mofidi: Pharm to Body is run by me and Jasmine. We basically have been researching mushrooms for two years now, ex- perimenting with grow- ing. Now that we have it down, we know what we’re doing, we came across Dawn’s post ask- ing if everyone wanted to use the land to grow mushrooms, and we said yes. Growing mushrooms to help rejuvenate the en- vironment and the land, using permaculture, and now we’re working on a project where we’re us- ing overgrown blackber- ries to try to grow oyster mushrooms. Basically, our main goal with Pharm to Body is to get communities of color to take them every day because they’re so good for our bodies, and just incorporating it into our diets because they help prevent major dis- eases (that impact) entire communities, like diabe- tes and heart disease. Once we get a bigger operation, we’ll have supplements and things like that. We’ll be work- ing with schools and food pantries around town to get our mushrooms out there into the com- munities we want them to go to. We can all go to Whole Foods and farm- ers markets and pay $20 for a pound of mush- is, providing folks bulk dried and fresh herbs to use for herbalists in the community who make medicine for the commu- nity, or folks who are just interested, or folks who just want some parsley to go with their dinner that night. I think a big part of why I started this is just feeling how important it is for Black folks to just reconnect with the land and to be engaged with their food processing and just with the agricul- tural community in Port- land and in Oregon, just so they can have more say over what they’re putting in their bodies and have more options. I’m also working on some tea blends, some spice blends, infused salts and sugars – getting good quality products that are grown with love and intention into my community. And at pric- es that they can afford to have access to the things that for generations we’ve been using, and herbs that our ancestors have been using to main- tain themselves and to feel good. This is our inheritance. It’s important we relearn all those things, and that it’s not scary or sketchy “witch stuff.” This is knowledge that we have the right to have access to, and have the right to continue those practices because they work and are so benefi- cial to us. Are there other pro- grams or groups doing similar things who you’re working with? Mofidi: Jasmine and I are in a program where we’ve been able to net- work with other farmers. Because growing mush- rooms is so good for the soil and your land, espe- cially the leftovers, we’ve been able to connect with other mushroom farm- ers or even worm farm- ers in the area that want to do exchange, instead of having to use capital- ism, we’re echoing that. Black Futures Farm was telling us how they PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Farm Juneteenth Celebrated at Jimi Hendrix Park Artist Devona Roy and the band Ancient Robots and Z. Jones take the stage during Juneteenth at Jimi Hendrix Park in Seattle on June 19. Thousands of people attended the event which included hundreds of vendors, a line up of more than a dozen local and national performers, a children’s zone and food. The Juneteenth Celebration was sponsored by King County Equity Now and is part of Africatown’s Summer of Soul Series. Find more events at https://www.summerofsoulseries.org/summer-of-soul. Legistlature cont’d from pg 1 last week, and a potential law to strengthen access to contracep- tion, abortion and gender affirm- ing care, which will likely be up for a vote later this week. Here is the status on key bills before the legislative session ends June 25. HEALTH CARE HB 2002 As a neighbor to Idaho, Ore- gon borders a state with some of the most punitive anti-abortion measures in the country. With abortion access no longer a con- stitutionally protected right, Or- egon Democrats introduced a bill to protect individual’s access to reproductive health care., includ- ing contraception, services to ter- minate pregnancy, and gender-af- firming medical treatment. As introduced, the bill would have allowed minors of any age to seek abortion without paren- tal consent – an approach that advocates argue would protect victims of abuse. But Republi- cans branded “parental rights” as a motivation for stalling the legislative term, and as a term of ending their walkout, Republi- cans were successful in diluting the bill so that children under 15 still require parental permission for such procedures. The bill now includes an exception to paren- tal notification if two health care providers at two different medi- cal practices agree that parental notification would be harmful to the patient. The bill is scheduled for a third reading tomorrow. HB 2697 Portland representatives Rob Nosse and Travis Nelson in- troduced this bill to lower the heavy patient-to-nurse ratios that lead to poor outcomes for both (https://www.theskanner. com/news/northwest/34316-i- have-no-doubt-people-are-dying- because-of-insufficient-staffing- portland-representatives-intro- duce-bill-to-require-safer-hospit- al-standards-for-staff ). Nelson, a registered nurse, has gone on record saying patients are dying due to insufficient staffing, point- ing out such practices also lead to a high rate of burnout among nurses. The bill would create staffing oversight committees in each hospital, introduce signifi- cant fines to hospitals that don’t comply with staffing plans, create an online portal for staff to report violations and outline acceptable staffing minimums in each hospi- tal unit. The bill was passed by the House and will likely head to the Senate this week. PUBLIC SAFETY HB 2005 Another major point of conten- tion for Republicans, the “ghost gun” bill aims to ban the manufac- ture and sale of firearms that are unserialized, and which are often sold at gun shows and online as kits for home assembly. Such fire- arms provide a loophole for mi- nors, felons and others who would not normally pass background checks to purchase a firearm. As introduced, HB 2005 also in- creased the minimum age to pur- chase certain firearms from 18 to 21, and would have allowed pub- lic entities to prohibit concealed weapons on premises, even if the carrier had a concealed permit. These two points were redlined as part of negotiations for the Republican senators’ return to session. The bill was passed June 15. CLIMATE CHANGE Senate Bills 868, 869, 870 and 871 are a package of environ- mental bills focused on energy efficiency in state buildings: Healthy Heating and Cooling for all, which streamlines heat pump installation, as well as retrofit- ting buildings for weatheriza- tion and efficiency; Build Smart from the Start, which updates the state building code for added en- ergy efficiency in new buildings; Building Performance standards, which requires commercial buildings to adhere to improved efficiency standards; and Smart State Buildings, which improves the energy efficiency of public, state-owned buildings. The package was referred to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. HB 3409 A package of 15 measures re- lating to promoting heat pump technology in homes, commercial building energy performance standards, state building energy use and greenhouse emissions, sustainable building and prop- erty design, a community green infrastructure grant program, urban tree canopies, the study of low-carbon fuels from woody bio- mass residue, rebate programs for zero-emission vehicles, work- force training programs for jobs in natural climate solutions, solar installation rebates and water testing for harmful algal blooms. The bill would also rename the Oregon Global Warming Com- mission as the Oregon Climate Action Commission. A second reading of the bill con- tinues today in the House. EDUCATION SB 3 This bill requires high school students to take courses in both career planning and financial lit- eracy as a requirement for grad- uation. High schools would be required to offer classes that pro- vide one half-credit of each. The bill is scheduled for a third read- ing today, and is likely to head to a Senate vote after. HB 3198 Pre-pandemic in Oregon, only 18% of Black fourth-graders test- ed at or above reading proficien- cy level for their grade (https:// w w w.theskanner.com /news/ northwest/31057-march-to-liter- acy-confronts-the-ways-we-fail- black-students). The Early Litera- cy Success Initiative would create a Birth Through Five Literacy Plan and establish Early Literacy Success grants for schools and communities. The bill heads to a third reading in the Senate today.
