October 2022 Newsletter

There is so much going on here at the farm. Here is our october 2022 newsletter so you can get all caught up. Harvest is in full swing, new growing regulations are being voted on, and we are working on clearing out noxious weeds and replanting with native trees and shrubs.

Harvest

We really have big reasons to celebrate. In 2016 Oregon became one a very few states to legalize the growing and selling of Industrial Hemp. Oregon blazed the trail and by 2022 most other states have followed. However, this came on the backs of the early license holders who had to forge our way through banking, prejudices, insurance and a myriad of challenges.

This marks our 6th harvest and we still get giddy when we walk the rows and see the terpenes looking like winter dew on the leaves. The oil is pungent and sticky – just beautiful. Two new varieties this year are Suver Haze and Hawaiian Haze. We also grew Stem Cell and Special Sauce 🙂

Outrageous new fees

Last week we had the opportunity to comment on the proposed new Industrial Hemp license fees. The license fees are jumping so high that it makes us question if we will continue to grow.

One interesting fact is that in 2017 in the State of Oregon we had 3000 acres licensed to grow hemp. In 2019 the state had 64,000 acres licensed and in 2022 the number of acres are back down to 3167. Of those acres there is speculation that the number of actual growing is about 1,500 acres.

We must be heard

We are proposing to have a sliding fee scale rather than punish the small family farm who are the backbone of this state to carry this hemp program.

In February 2021 we had an epic ice storm that devastated our forest area on our farm. Our evaluation is that it destroyed at least 85 trees. Our summer project this year was to clean up the ice storm damage and remove large areas of invasive weeds. It was a large undertaking but now we are able to replant with native trees and shrubs.

We recently watched The Need to Grow. In the midst of so much doom this movie gives us hope and inspiration to continue the positive impact we can have. We are committed to growing organic crops and working our farm with regenerative practices. We believe that we need regenerative agriculture to address the urgent ecological problems of climate change.

The number one ingredient in organic food is integrity

If you have not yet watched our interview with Ward
and Rosie Burroughs and their passion about regenerative agriculture, please give this a listen. We are so proud of them and how their farm is the first certified regenerative almond farm in the world.