Quillisascut Farm: Hands-On Approach Teaches How a Local Food System Works

"It was mind-opening to hear others' opinions, perspectives and how passionate they were about them. I was inspired to see how beautiful everyone's cooking was and how sustainably it was done. To see that it CAN be done with effort and knowledge." - Culinary student attending Quillisascut Farm School

* * *

In the far northeastern corner of Washington State, among the high desert pines populating the northern reaches of the Columbia River, Lora Lea and Rick Misterly have created a hands-on learning center where students spend a week immersed in a living example of what a local food system looks like. No lemons spark the salads; instead, the kitchen uses verjus made from the pressed juice of unripened grapes—the vines left from an abandoned attempt to make wine in the farm's early days. No branded items are allowed at the table, save for wine bottles (thank heavens).

The farm table.

I was invited to Quillisascut Farm to experience the program that now exposes dozens of students a year to small intensive workshops like Farm Culinary 101 (the workshop I attended), Edible Education, and Chefs of Color, among others. Each workshop has a particular focus, and most are aimed at professional chefs and culinary students, though serious cooks and those interested in building strong local food systems will find them perfectly approachable.

Lora Lea Misterly.

Lora Lea and Rick originally bought 26 hillside acres in the early 80s, intending to build a self-sufficient homestead where they could raise animals and have a garden to feed them throughout the year. She had grown up on a dairy farm in the area, so they started with both cows and goats, but Lora Lea was increasingly drawn to goats because of their intelligent and inquisitive natures. She also began making cheese from their milk.

The school building.

They built a home with a cheese room and cellar for Lora Lea, and eventually added another 10 acres to the property. The couple marketed their cheeses to chefs in Seattle, Rick making the exhausting twelve-hour round trip deliveries. Several of their customers became interested in visiting the farm after hearing of their integrated approach to farming and making food from what they grew themselves. These customer visits and the inclusive approach the Misterlys took led them to start offering classes to culinary professionals, students and food writers. The visits prompted Rick to build a large straw-bale building that houses a professional kitchen, a large dining room, a living room for nightly gatherings and dorm rooms upstairs. (He also included a large double-wide barn entrance that farm equipment could access in case the school idea didn't work out.)

Rick demonstrating the farm's compost system.

Conservation and use of resources is a key tenet of the curriculum at the school, and the very first workshop on the week's schedule was a demonstration of making the compost that enriches the soil that feeds the plants, animals and people who live there. It's a holistic approach that underlies everything at the farm, which depends on a well system for water—the bathroom mantra "if it's yellow, let it mellow" is drilled into students' heads—as well as the need to make use of every part of the plants and animals harvested.

Slaughtering and cleaning chickens.

A typical day at Quillisascut begins in the pre-dawn dark after a (very) quick cup of coffee made by the saintly staff who volunteer their time at these workshops—and fyi, that 5:45 start time was tough for this freelance writer. The morning session usually begins at the barn up the hill with anything from butchering a neighbor's heritage Karakul ram killed earlier that morning, to slaughtering and eviscerating several of the farm's chickens, to helping Lora Lea milk her goats.

Cracking walnuts for walnut oil.

After the early morning session, a large breakfast of farm-grown fruit and eggs, with breads made from grains milled onsite, is served buffet-style off the butcher block counter in the kitchen along with (thank the goddess once again) lots more (locally roasted) coffee. Each day has a "Word of the Day" theme—the first word was "Respect"—which students are encouraged to consider as they move through their assignments. The schedule moves swiftly from breakfast to classes on cheesemaking with Lora Lea, or a foraging walk with Chef Kären Jurgenson, or feeding and watering the pigs, chickens and goats. At least one morning is dedicated to harvesting whatever is in season in the garden (top photo), which will be pickled, cooked, baked or otherwise utilized in meals that week.

Making bread with Chef Don Reed.

After a hearty farm lunch prepared by students, who are divided into four or five-person "teams" for the week, classes continue apace with field trips to other area farms—John and Michelle Progar of Meadowlark Farm's innovative organic cropping system was fascinating—a presentation on bees and pollinators with beekeeper Steve Schott or bread baking with Chef Don Reed. After dinner is discussion and reflection on the day's activities led by Lora Lea, followed by well-earned sleep.

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[Quillisascut] really created some sort of special bond.  Maybe it was the community that type of work creates, but on the last day, our final word was "grateful." It was a wonderful experience and one of those places your soul likes to stay for a while even after you have left." - Professional chef attending Quillisascut Farm School

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Student making goat cheese.

The farm school at Quillisascut has drawn participants from around the country, indeed from around the globe, but is primarily attended by students from Seattle-area culinary programs who compete for scholarships to the workshops. The school has become successful enough that it provides the bulk of the farm's income, and Lora Lea has cut back her milking goats to seven from a high of around 40, and they have found a distributor for the cheeses so that Rick no longer needs to make the long deliveries to Seattle.

Now in their mid-60s, the Misterlys believe that their primary mission is to spread the message about the hard work and care it takes to produce good food, with the intention that not just the education, but the interactions with the people and animals, as well as the quality and flavor of the sustainably grown food that students harvest, make and eat, will become an integral part of their lives as they move forward in their careers.

See more photos from my trip to Quillisascut Farm on my Instagram feed.

Farm Life: Spring Tinged with Hope, Sadness

I don't know about you, but in spring my social media feeds are full of babies…tiny goats scampering after their mothers, calves with melting brown eyes, lambs a mere few minutes old wobbling to their feet. For farmers it means long nights with no sleep, searching in the dark for mothers that may have strayed to an isolated corner of a field to give birth and bottle-feeding any babies rejected by their mothers, at the same time as rejoicing at the new life they bring to the farm. The following is by Kate McLean of Longest Acres Farm in central Vermont, whose Instagram post (top photo) stopped me in my tracks with its heartbreaking clarity and simultaneous sense of anguish and hope. Farmers like this who care so deeply for their animals are why I love what I do.

I lost my favorite ewe Saturday morning. Just cold and dead with no hint of explanation. She left two little daughters; Fiona and Fanny. I wished I had known she would die that night.

I wished I had been able to thank her for her six years of service to the farm. For her eight lambs. But more, I’m grateful I didn’t find her dying. I know that’s spineless. But I hate finding dying animals. Then the farmer is always torn in calculation: What can I do? What could a vet do? What would a vet cost? How much is this animal worth in $? How much is this animal worth to my heart? Can the farm shoulder this expense? It’s an abjectly shitty calculation and I hate making it.

So I’m always grateful when the animal spares me the anguish (again, I know, spineless). I’m always grateful when an animal is allowed the dignity of a quiet death in the middle of the night without the indignation of my intrusion, of my calculations. We had a funeral pyre for her that afternoon (as there ain’t much burying in frozen April ground such as this). We will honor her memory by taking damn good care of the lambs she left us, who are now bleating for their next bottle, so I must be off.

Posted with permission from Longest Acres Farm.

Your Food, Your Legislature: 2018 Session May Be Short on Agreement

The 2018 session of the Oregon Legislature may end up like the vacation we took to France many years—by that I mean decades—ago. I'd studied maps and read guide books, planning what I was sure would be a leisurely road trip through the French countryside, sipping coffee at sidewalk cafés, staying in small inns and meeting charming locals. While it certainly had moments of leisure and charm, it turned out to be a two-week, cross-country marathon of rushing from one pre-arranged reservation to the next.

In other words, I had bitten off more than we could (comfortably) chew.

Do we want our farms to look like this?

That little tale relates to this year's legislative session in the fact that legislators, by law, have just 35 days to convene, conduct and finish their work in Salem. That's because, in 2010, Oregon went from bi-annual sessions to annual sessions, lasting 160-days in odd-numbered years with the shorter sessions in even-numbered years.

These shorter sessions were originally designed so legislators could take care of budget issues that might arise between the longer sessions. But, of course, politicians being politicians, the agenda often strays beyond that boundary. This year is no different.

Originally the session would have dealt with a devastating budget shortfall that would have befallen the state had Measure 101, the Healthcare Insurance Premiums Tax for Medicaid Referendum—a fee on hospitals and insurance companies to fund Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage to 1 in 4 Oregonians—not passed.

Or like this?

Though Oregon still faces a $200 to $300 million dollar shortfall due to cuts in federal tax laws passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in Washington, DC, legislators have decided to take up a bill they're calling the Clean Energy Jobs bill (Senate bill SB 1507 and a House version, HB 4001). According to an article in the Oregonian, it would create "a limit on greenhouse gas emissions [that] would require many of Oregon's largest polluters to pay for their emissions by purchasing allowances at an auction. The state would spend the proceeds from the auctions to reduce the financial impact to households, support projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help areas disproportionately impacted by climate change."

In other words, a classic cap-and-trade system.

Though House leaders like Speaker Tina Kotek and Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson are working hard to push it forward, Senate leaders, particularly Senate President Peter Courtney, are already backing away from committing to pass a major piece of legislation on such a short timeline.

And how does this affect issues of the state's food system, which you'd expect to read about here?

Like this?

When establishing this cap on greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources, it will create a fund to address the impacts of climate change and support climate-friendly farming practices.

"While the amount of money available is unknown at this stage, the bills have the potential to support a wide range of activities and practices on farms that sequester carbon in soils, reduce energy use, encourage irrigation efficiency, and protect both working land and natural areas on farms and ranches," wrote Friends of Family Farmers Policy Director Ivan Maluski. "Farmers are not only on the front lines of experiencing climate change impacts like extreme weather and uncertain water supplies, as land managers we can also be part of the solution."

Or like this?

Not unexpectedly, industrial representatives are working to alter, if not quash, the legislation. Already the state's largest mega-dairies have inserted a loophole to exempt them from reducing, or even reporting, their annual methane emissions. And Shelly Boshart Davis, Monsanto's 2015 Farm Mom of the Year, weighed in on the bill in an op-ed, writing  that she was "dismayed" by legislation she feels would "stifle my ability to invest in sustainable technology and dramatically increase the cost of running my company," complaining about the increase of "$50 per month by some estimates" to her family's business, Boshart Trucking, reported to have annual sales of more than $8 million.

Whether this bill actually makes it to a vote this session or legislators decide to postpone it until 2019, you can get more information and weigh in on this legislation now.

Good Farmers Have Happy Animals

It's always good for me to stop staring at the computer and head out into the real world, and for me the best place to go is to a farm, especially if it's that time of year when lambs and pigs and goats are popping out babies right and left. Michael and Linda Guebert of Terra Farma had been posting some adorable pictures of their latest litter of piglets on Instagram, and since I'd been talking with Mike about arranging a visit when the winter rains abated and their pastures dried out, I asked if they might have some time for a viewing.

Cinnamon and her piglets.

Yesterday was the appointed day for that long-awaited visit, and with the morning promising (mostly) blue skies and reasonable temperatures—woohoo!—I jumped in Chili and drove out to the farm. Even if you don't have a farm to visit, I can testify that the drive to Corbett via the Old Columbia River Highway is spectacular this time of year, lushly green from all the rains and with the Sandy River running thick with runoff from the many streams that feed into it.

Primarily a livestock-based operation, Linda and Mike raise pigs, chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl and rabbits for meat, and milk three cows and several goats twice a day. They also have laying hens, and sell raw milk and eggs out of a refrigerator on their porch to a regular clientele who come to the farm. Located on 10 acres of hilly terrain above Smith Creek, the couple run the farm on a rotational grazing system, moving the groups of animals to fresh pasture in a series of paddocks so that the health of the pastures is maintained and, hopefully, improved.

Scooter.

When I pulled up, Linda took me to the barn to meet their resident goat, Scooter, paralyzed as a kid when she got tangled in some of the electrified netting they use as movable fencing. Even though she can't stand or move her back legs much, she gets around the farm quite ably—it actually reminded me of Wyeth's "Christina's World"—though Linda mentioned they're looking for a set of wheels so she can be more comfortable and mobile. (If you know of anyone with a cart, give me a shout!)

Also in the barn was a set of several-week-old goat triplets staring down at us from their perch on bales of hay about eight feet off the ground. After a meet-and-greet, we went out to meet the new piglets and their mama, a sow named Cinnamon, who was busy showing them how to properly root in the grass.

Perching triplets.

The wonderful part about visiting farms and talking with farmers who care about their animals the way that Mike and Linda do, is seeing them pointing out the individual characteristics of each animal, laughing at their behaviors, telling stories and being genuinely engaged with them. It's heartening in a time when agriculture seems to be turning more and more toward an industrial model, when a living being—the animals and often the humans who work there—seem to be treated as no more important than a widget.

Thanks, Mike and Linda, for caring and for sharing your farm with me!

Farm Bulletin: The Ecological Mosaic that is Ayers Creek Farm

It is appropriate that the first post of this new year is a short essay by contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm, taken from the 2017 farm calendar. His Farm Bulletins, about the intricacies of a farmer's dance with nature, have been an integral part of Good Stuff NW since 2007. I am gratified that he allows me to continue to share them with you.

Ayers Creek Farm has nearly 80 acres of ground suited to the production of crops. The remaining 64 acres include a 40-acre open wetland, 20 acres of oak savannah and some swales of green ash and hawthorn. A little over half the farm is a managed landscape, a little under is largely unmanaged. It is hard to imagine the farm without its two hemispheres. For us, a highly productive square of farmland would be a dull place indeed without the messy exuberance of the wild areas bleeding into our efforts at an organized ecology. Even on the managed parts of the farm, we seek to keep a light footprint on the landscape.

January

In both natural and managed ecosystems, dead plant material is the substrate of life. It can be seen as a stock market where the ecosystem stores and exchanges capital built up through the summer. The crop residue is still a productive part of life, but in a different way. During the winter months, these old cornstalks protect the soil from the driving rains, and as their roots decay, the resulting passages ease the path of the water in the soil. As the plants decay further, they contribute to humus in the soil, which provides nutrient and water storage. At first glance, it may seem messy, or even a sign of laziness, but as you observe it functioning there is actually great beauty, vitality and order in the tangled mass of death.

Photos by Anthony Boutard.

Farm Bulletin: Autumn Field Choreography

Lest anyone thinks that the end of harvest season and the onset of winter leaves a farmer with time for bucolic meditations on the year's passing, contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm is here to set you straight about his own dance with Mother Nature.

Early on we had a tenant farmer with a split operation, some organic and a lot conventional. In conversation, he told us that he had to sit down with his father and figure out how they managed to grow winter dry land crops before the availability of the herbicides and synthesized fertilizers that are prohibited in organic production. His father told him it required careful timing, the land was fertilized and cultivated in late summer. The farmer then waited until the first of the autumn storms. It would dampen the ground and the unwanted winter annuals would sprout after a couple of weeks. A quick cultivation would kill the unwanted seedlings and then the cash crop seed is planted, usually in the latter half of October. If all goes well, the crop is remarkably clean because the freshly seeded crop grabs the space quickly.

There is nothing about that farmer's operation we would consider emulating and we extracted ourselves from the arrangement because his methods were hard on our land. Nonetheless, his father's advice made sense and we have followed it, mostly successfully, for 16 years. Of course, it requires weather conducive to the effort, and that isn't guaranteed. We cultivated and fertilized the ground in late September. For the last two weeks, we have been watching the weather forecasts with bated breath. Last week, the window seem to appear with the dry weather forecast for Saturday through Tuesday, and we knocked down the sprouting seed Saturday. Unexpectedly, it shut tight with the rain on Sunday, leading to a day of muttering and gritting of teeth. Fortunately, by Tuesday, the ground was dry enough to plant the red wheat, durum, barley and mustard. It was a long day, but looking at the forecast for the rest of the month, we were lucky to have been prepared to grab the moment. Now we will fret until we see the fields turn green as the crops sprout, but not too green indicating the Lazarus-like return of unwanted growth. Farmer thy name is worry.

Farm Bulletin: An Appreciation for the Starling

I've published more than 120 of Anthony Boutard's essays on Good Stuff NW since I first ran across his writing eight years ago. His keen observations of the creatures that inhabit Ayers Creek Farm along with him and his wife, Carol, and his appreciation for the complexity of their interactions on his organic farm are deep and profound, and provide the leitmotif of the themes I attempt to address here. This one is classic Anthony.

One of Rachel Carson's early articles for the American Naturalist Society was "How About Citizenship Papers for the Starling?" Loud, joyful and brash, these handsome birds are always looking for a party. Competent and improvisational songsters, but most of all they are engaging mimics. If a siren goes off at the firehouse, they will spend the next hour or two refining their siren call until, that is, a rooster crows, and then they are on that project. A tom quail calls, and an echo erupts from every idle starling. Around noontime, they descend on the bird bath in a group, splashing about until barely a drop remains, leaving a few flower petals and leaves afloat in the puddle. For some reason, they feel compelled to decorate their bath, as well as their nest, with pretty bits and fragrant herbs. Of course, when they bathe the noisy creatures squawk just like children enjoying a summer pool, then fly off as a group for some other diversion or entertainment.

Rachel Carson

Back in 1939, Carson was urging us to drop our animus for the bird and appreciate its pluck and value. Nothing has changed, starlings still bear the double burden of being an immigrant, and flying while black. In farming areas, the starling and the crow can be shot at will, any time of the year. Going back a half century, the starling was accused of spreading a lung disease, histoplasmosis, threatening an as yet unrealized public health crisis. Shortly after the E. coli and spinach episode in 2006, scientists at Ohio State Extension raised the public health banner against the starling once more, along with a cool million, to see if the bird causes food safety problems by spreading the diseases from feedlots. Apparently, they convinced enough people of the problem, and received another $2.3 million. For what it's worth, starlings are attracted to feedlots because they are primarily insectivores, and insects are provided there in abundance. Our filthy food production habit is their treasure.

Interestingly, the one case we recall where a flock of birds was implicated in an E. coli outbreak happened in English pea field in Alaska, and migrating Sand Hill Cranes were named as the culprit. But they are not reviled like the starling, so no snarling about a public health crisis due to cranes. The real problem was that the peas were machine harvested and no one checked the field beforehand. Machines do not not share our visceral reaction to animal feces, they plod along happily consuming the crop. Our displacement of humans with machines in the harvest of fruits and vegetables warrants more attention.

The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris).

In an odd way starlings and other wild creatures received good news this week. Following the 2006 spinach problem and other similar incidents, including strawberries and hazelnuts from Oregon, food safety wonks advised farmers that they should create lifeless zones around their farms to eliminate the possibility of wildlife bringing in E.coli, Salmonella and other food pathogens as a field contaminant. Remove trees and brush so birds can't roost or nest nearby, and animals can't hide. The mantra was that more scorched earth around the fields, the better, for nature is a devious enemy that never sleeps. In brief, it ended up that the research found no corresponding decrease in disease causing strains of Salmonella and E. coli associated with these measures. In fact, in some cases, an increase was detected. Diverse landscapes provide many advantages, and food safety may be one of them, but never overstated.

There are many birds that eat farmers' fruits, but it is the epicurean delight starlings take in finding a good patch of cherries or berries that farmers find particularly galling. The merry cacophony rubs their nerves the wrong way. But farmers are always stingy with credit. When we cultivate the soil, an army of starlings waddles behind the tractor gleaning every wireworm and cutworm available, sometimes carrying eight or ten grubs in their long yellow bills. They fly back to their nest, and return seemingly just moments later. If we are not exposing grubs for them, they are working the berry fields and orchard, again carrying back full bills of food. Watch their nest holes, and you will see them flying back and forth from sunup to dusk. Although they eat some fruit, insects and larvae are the staple of their diet.

The starlings are cavity nesters, and another one of the dire predictions made 50 years ago, repeated with the alacrity of a starling's mimicry, is the usurpation of other cavity nesters by these aliens. In our observations, flickers, starlings and kestrels share similar sized cavities, and they alternate sites from year to year. Swallows, chickadees, bluebirds and nuthatches use much smaller cavities than the starling. All of these cavity nesters have healthy populations in spite of this dastardly usurper. In fact, the alternation of nest sites may provide a valuable health function for the three larger birds. They belong to three different avian orders, and consequently host different parasites, mites and insects. The birds are probably following a similar practice to farmers who rotate crops from different plant families to reduce disease and insect problems.

Finally, one more endearing trait of the starling. Remember the petals and leaves in the birdbath? It is part of their courtship ritual. The male starling finds a suitable cavity and builds a nest of fine grass decorated with petals and fragrant leaves. Very much like the bower bird, his female suitors visit and decide whether he is of the salt. When a female accepts the proposition, they finish the nest together, do some other stuff and she lays her eggs.

Top photo of starlings and other birds by Anthony Boutard. Photos of the starling and Rachel Carson from Wikipedia.

Farm Bulletin: The Dirt on Dirt

The human brain has a deep affinity for names. Soon we will start harvesting the nameless grape which we call a "grape with no name," what a surprise. A nod to both a song and a restaurant from decades past located on Commonwealth Pier in Boston. Run and staffed by descendants and family of Portuguese fishermen, the restaurant had no name, no sign and no menu. Enter the only blue doorway on the pier, and when it is your turn in the line, look for an opening among the long tables covered with checked oil cloth. Two choices for lunch, the day's seafood chowder and the day's fried seafood. It was the toughest choice ever put before us.

Our nameless grapes (green grapes in top photo, center), so named, elicit opposite reactions. At Higgins, Greg and Patrick gamely put it on the menu as a "grape with no name" whereas Josh and his staff at Food Front display them as "Boutard grapes." Despite our entreaties that food should be defined by how it falls on the palate, Josh told us a nameless grape is just too much for people to swallow. Heidi's son, Jack, calls them Anthony grapes. We will leave them nameless, but we appreciate the dedications.

Human brains have a similar affinity for measurements. One such measurement that draws the attention of farmers is soil pH. It is a number that comes with a decimal point. Attach a decimal point to any number and it immediately takes on a hypnotically greater significance than one without. It is also a logarithm, but that never grabs people to the same degree as a decimal. The other alluring quality of soil pH is that it can be changed simply and reliably if deemed not optimal, typically raised at little cost by the application of agricultural lime. Synthetic fertilizers tend to acidify the soil, reducing nutrient availability, and lime acts as an antacid of sorts, as well as providing the element calcium. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz…

Under certified organic agriculture, synthetic nutrient sources with their acidifying behavior, as well as synthetic disease and pest controls, are prohibited. Indigestion solved? Not if you consider pH alone. On occasion we have had our soil tested, and the test results always included the pH as a perfunctory service. The results are all over the map, from 4.9 to about 7.1. It is a labile character of the soil, shifting with the seasons and crops, and its measurement is generally not particularly informative. In an organically managed soil, the bacteria, fungi, microfauna and the crops themselves all influence pH. So our soil might be acidic enough to warrant adjusting in a synthetic regime, but not under organic management.

But what about the calcium? Don't we need to add lime anyway, and the pH will tell us how much is safe to add because excess lime can damage the soil and inhibit plant growth? There are six elements plants need in substantial quantities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, calcium and sulphur. We have to amend our soils to maintain sufficient levels of these elements; this is especially important on a commercial farm where we are hauling into market substantial quantities of these elements in the form of food.

On an organic farm, calcium and sulphur are especially important because they are the building blocks for the plant's defenses against diseases and insects. Calcium is a key element for cell wall strength—most of the plant's calcium actually resides in its cell walls—and sulphur is a building block for the crop's internal chemical defenses. On a farm where the crops have external chemical defenses against disease and insects, that is, synthetic fungicides and insecticides applied by the farmer, the cultivator need only provide just enough calcium and sulphur for basic biological functions. Organic farms have spiders, dragonflies and a host of other predaceous arthropods helping to control the insect populations, as well as beneficial bacteria, yeast and fungi that ward off disease, but we need strong plants as well. Consequently, crops grown under organic management need more calcium and sulphur available in the soil, in fact nearing an excess under conventional nutrient interpretations.

As mentioned above, agricultural lime, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), is problematic as a calcium source. It can damage the soil's structure and chemistry. Although it is cheap, a 50# bag of lime costs about $4.15, it is not the best deal. Another good source is gypsum, but it does cost about 50% more, at $6.05 for a 50# bag. Even though it is nominally more expensive, we use gypsum exclusively, and never use lime. Generous applications of gypsum do not harm the soil, in fact the mineral improves the soil's texture, nor does it change the pH significantly. This is important because many fungi and bacteria thrive in certain pH levels, and changing the pH suddenly and significantly without a very good reason can alter the microbial ecology of the soil unproductively.

Gypsum is calcium sulphate (CaSO4). The best reason for using gypsum from the perspective of an organic grower is that you get both important elements, calcium and sulfur, and pay just 50% more. A very good a deal, especially when you factor in the costs of transportation and spreading the amendment. The other problem with lime is that the carbonate anion is at best valueless, possibly harmful, absent terrestrial indigestion; plants fix their own carbon from the air through photosynthesis so it is completely non-nutritive. We use gypsum for all our crops, annual and perennial, and buy more of it than any other amendment.

A cautionary note on gypsum sources. It is best to avoid recycled gypsum because some older wallboard contained trace amounts of mercury as an anti-fungal agent, or fungicides. The Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) tests and certifies materials used in organic agriculture. On bags of gypsum and other amendments, it is best to look for the statement "OMRI Approved" or "OMRI Listed." We also use a small bucketful of gypsum to mark yellow jacket nests so no one walks into them. We toss it over the hole and they dig their way out unharmed. They are valuable predators and scavengers, worth keeping so long as we know where they are.

Too often, organic agriculture is characterized in the negative, especially the absence of synthetic pesticides. Once you settle in as an organic farmer, success comes with managing the soil ecology so that you build strong crops that coexist with the benefits and the challenges that nature delivers. Book 18 of Pliny's Natural History is his discussion of farming. The book opens with a rambling plea regarding stewardship of the earth—he was no Homer or Sappho—but as you read it the fundamental spirit of organic agriculture is apparent. He laments the tendency of farmers to treat their fields like a battlefield, deploying poisons and other measures against nature. He urges us to farm in a manner that thanks nature for bringing us into world, and treats her as our benefactor in a shared enterprise with the full measure her creation. It is apt advice 2,000 years later.

Farm Bulletin: Asking for Help

On a sunny November morning, the (deep breath…) Oregon House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Communities (whew!) met in Salem to hear from the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture and several representatives from Oregon farmers' markets and small farmers involved in direct sales to consumers. One of those was contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm. His testimony outlines the issues the working group, formed that day, will be addressing.

Our farm is small, but well diversified. We produce grains, legumes, vegetables, cane fruit, table grapes, nuts and stone fruit. We are also one of a handful of market farms that grow vegetables all through the winter.

As market farmers, we are often asked why it is so hard to find traditional local foods such as fresh hominy, locally grown and ground grains, brined pickles, or prunes and raisins. We reply that Oregon Department of Agriculture’s rules discourage small farms from on-farm processing with requirements created for industrial type standards, a daunting process and steep fees. The last session of the legislature passed a law allowing ODA to fine violators of food processing laws, big and small, $10,000, further stifling any experimentation.

Oregon’s strict land use laws are predicated upon the productive use of the state’s farm and forest lands. The underlying justification for protecting the land is the flow of economic and social benefits that land preservation brings. Family farms such as ours should be preserved for our day-to-day contribution to our state’s economy, and not merely as quaint footnotes from the past or horse pasture.

It is not enough for the state to restrict development on farm and forestland, if our ability to generate income from our land is curtailed. Traditionally, farmers have bolstered farm income by processing some of their crops. [Some of Ayers Creek's products are shown at top. - KAB] Walnut and prune driers were a common part of Willamette Valley farms. Decades ago, dozens of roadside stands sold prunes, pies, pickles and preserves prepared by farm families. As licensing fees and other requirements have put a chill on modern farmers’ ability to add value to their crops, these farm-based foods have disappeared. Sadly, it is hard to find a true Oregon prune anywhere in the state today.

An artifact of the last three decades when almost every Oregon farm sold the majority of their crops to large processors, the food laws were written to regulate large industrial processors. Consequently, few farmers paid much heed to the laws. As processors have folded or abandoned Oregon, farm income is being pinched. We need to draft laws that give farms greater flexibility in value-added production and encourage a healthy rural economy.

Good models for change exist. Many states have adopted a light regulatory touch when it comes to on-farm processing of low hazard foods such as pies, pickles, preserves, dried fruits, lacto-fermented vegetables, hominy and grinding grains. New York and Iowa have a long tradition of encouraging farmers to offer these foods directly to the public without costly inspections and licensing fees. Minnesota’s “pickle law” permits farmers to produce various value added foods without running afoul of the state food processing laws. This spring, Indiana followed suit with its “Pie Law,” freeing pickles, preserves and baked goods from heavy regulation when sold directly to the consumer.

These laws are carefully limited to direct sales to the consumer, not third-party sales. It is not a free-for-all and all products have labeling requirements, including a list of ingredients and a statement that the goods are not produced in an inspected and licensed facility. They simply remove a substantial barrier to expanding food options.

Progressive states treat on-farm value-added products as one would a bicycle versus a Mack truck. It does not make sense to require bicyclists to wear seat belts and pass a commercial drivers license (CDL) exam. Likewise, a farm family that bakes a few pies, grinds some cornmeal or ferments a few batches of sauerkraut to sell to regular customers should not be subject to the same laws as a mill grinding tons of corn per day or a processor producing thousands of jars of sauerkraut per hour. These are foods that have been safely prepared by farmers for generations. We need to reinvigorate the tradition rather than stifle it with pointless regulation.

Along with other farmers and consumers, we hope the legislature makes changes in the laws in the next session.

If you'd like to support the changes in the laws that Anthony outlines, you can locate your legislator here and tell them how important it is to support Oregon's small farmers and farmers' markets.