Locus Focus on 11/09/09

FARMING BEYOND THE BARCODE

Portland area farmers Clare Carver (Big Table Farm in Gaston) and Jill Kuehler (Zenger Farm in SE Portland) return to Locus Focus for a chat with Joel Salatin, farmer, food choice advocate and dream-doer, who runs Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. We'll discuss the sustainable agricultural methods they practice, based on polyculture and the interweaving roles of farm animals and crops.

Polyface Farm is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, whosewner Joel Salatin was featured in Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Polyface Farm (farm of many faces) practices both traditional sustainable agricultural methods as well pioneering new practices that mimic nature and heal the earth. Watch Joel in action on Polyface Farm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbXU5iR2P4

Clare Carver and her partner Brian Marcy farm in Gaston, Oregon, at Big Table Farm, named after their desire to provide a gracious and welcoming table for themselves and friends, with a cornucopia of hand-crafted food and wine. They are establishing a working farm, where they raise pasture poultry, pigs, cows and egg-laying chickens, along with a large garden. Inspired by Polyface Farm, they manage an intensive grazing system of farming, that builds soils and sequesters carbon,.

Zenger Farm, at the outskirts of SE Portland, is owned by Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services and run by a non-profit group Friends of Zenger Farm, as a learning and demonstration farm. The farm provides numerous educational opportunities for youth, families and farmers who want to learn about the joys of getting diry. It offers workshops and hands-on training on sustainable agriculture, wetland ecology, food security and healthy eating, on its 6-acre organic farming operation adjacent to a 10-acre wetland.