Resources

  • Farm

    The farm uses regenerative practices to provide nutritious produce to local communities. We dedicate the majority of our yield to a farm-to-clinic delivery program for medical patients, which we started with Wallace and Milk Crate Kitchen in 2023. Milk Crate turns our produce into meals and delivers them to Wallace patients! We also set up a weekly farm stand at the clinic during the growing season.

  • Education Center

    We aim to provide affordable educational programs for people of all ages. Right now we offer field trips for students in the Gresham Barlow and Reynolds school districts, and workshops for all community members. Topics for our educational programs range from “how to grow and cook nutritious food” to “how to improve the social, environmental and health impacts of our food system.”

  • Community Hub

    The farm is a place for folks to gather, share meals, learn, and build community. We host volunteer days every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9am-12pm during the growing season and we host a few farm parties per year. Check out our events page to sign up for the next one!

 Definitions

  • “The responsible use and protection of the natural environment through conservation and sustainable practices to enhance ecosystem resilience and human well-being” (Chapin et al, 2011 )

  • “A holistic and structural view of the food system that sees healthy food as a human right and addresses structural barriers to that right” (FoodPrint)

  • The web of activities and players involved in bringing food from seed to plate, including the processes of “growing, harvesting, processing (or transforming or changing), packaging, transporting, marketing, consuming, [distributing] and disposing of food and food packages” (Farmland Information Center)

  • “Farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle” (Regeneration International)

Learning Resources

  • A few classics are:

    The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

    Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

    Food Politics by Marion Nestle

    For a great list compiled by Danielle Nierenberg at GreenBiz, click here.

  • Food Print is a fantastic resource for learning about food systems issues.

    Civil Eats is a nonprofit newsletter with a ton of great articles about the American food system.

    Mark Bittman is a well-known food writer for the New York Times.

    The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future published this Food System Primer, which “offers short, easy-to-digest readings about topics from farm to fork, peppered with anecdotes and images that bring concepts to life.”

  • A few of our favorite documentaries are:

    Food, Inc. (2008)

    Forks Over Knives (2011)

    King Corn (2007)

    For more documentary suggestions, see this list by Eat This, Not That!

    There are also some helpful TEDTalks and other YouTube videos on the subject. For example:

    Why do we need to change our food system? (UN Environment Programme)

    It's not food, it's the food system (Samina Raja, TEDxUniversityatBuffalo)

    Feeding Nine Billion series by Dr. Evan Fraser