Learn From Your Farmers
Upcoming Events - Workshops - Classes - Volunteer Opportunities
Friday, Jan 27, 2023, 10am-12pm
Online or in-person (on PSU's campus) - Free & open to public - registration required
Reserve your space today
How can we develop a truly resilient food system that can withstand shocks and reduce hunger and vulnerability in our region? Join us to hear from frontline-serving organizations, food growers/producers, government representatives, and researchers on this critical issue, and to share your perspective.
Presentation of preliminary research findings by Dr. Megan Horst, Meg Grzybowski, and members of the community advisory board* on "Perspectives from Frontline Organizations in the Portland Metro Region on Addressing Food Insecurity During the Covid-19 Pandemic" Followed by a panel discussion with: Carol Chang, Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization (moderator) Mark Guzman, MealsOnUsPDX, Sonya McCormick, Oregon Emergency Management, Malcolm Shabazz Hoover, Black Futures Farm, Michelle Week, Good Rain Farm, Dr. Kimberly Zueli, The Feeding Cities Group
Free & open to the public - Registration required - Reserve your space today!
Hope to see you there!
FALL 2022: Let’s Build A Better Food System for All!
We want to hear your story!
In Partnership With Washington State University Extension Program we are gathering stories of CSA Farmers and EBT/SNAP/Food Bank Recipients in an effort to build better local food systems that work for families and small farmers alike!
These focus groups will be in the late summer or fall 2022. We'll ask about using SNAP/EBT/Food Stamps to buy local food. We're trying to understand what works well and what makes it hard to access local food, especially around CSA. That is Community Supported Agriculture! If you sign up, we'll follow up with invites to one of the 2-hour focus group sessions. Sessions will be held both in person & virtually. We are eager and grateful to have the opportunity to hear your stories and excited to continue to enhance food access! Your input is deeply valued and important to this work and we value your time and story! That's why everyone who participates in a focus group will receive a $50 gift card!
Scan the QR code at left or click the image to fill out the survey and get yourself signed up!
Volunteer Opportunity May-October, 2021
Farm Lunch Table is a volunteer opportunity for members and other community members to provide a wholesome meal to the farm crew - a counterintuitive dilemma, to eat well as a farmer takes a kitchen and time and … we don’t have those on the farm! Thank you for helping us eat a healthy meal on the field.
Sign Up for a Lunch Delivery Shift Here
Food Heritage Series with Michelle Week, November 2021
Tuesday November 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd via Portland Underground Grad School
Our relationship with food is written in our genes but many of us are disconnected from the cultural history of food and the richness it can bring to our dining table.
Learn how to research and connect with your food heritage, prepare, and preserve the foods your ancestors ate. What unique peoples blended together to make you? Do you have a flavor-packed fusion food waiting to be tasted?
Explore your food heritage and reconnect with the cultural history on your dinner table. Let’s dine with our ancestors! Click here to register.
February 22nd 2021
Rogue Farm Corps Presents:
Changing Hands - An online workshop series for farmers and ranchers.
Most business planning classes teach you how to create a general business plan--not how to make a business plan for diversified crops or livestock grown on a seasonal basis. In this workshop, join Michelle Week of Good Rain Farm and Mickey Willenbring of Dot Ranchas they discuss their farm/ranch business plans, how they developed them, and how they use them. Moderator Eric DeLary of the Blue Mountain Community College Small Business Development Center will also be on hand to answer questions and offer resources for farm and ranch businesses.
February 4-25, Thursdays
Portland Underground Grad School :
American Agriculture
The scope of American agriculture and our country's food politics is vast. Join Farmer Michelle in a guided discussion exploring the lived experiences of Farmers in our region. Go beyond the conceptual, academic understanding, and engage in honest conversation with your local farmer.
If you are like Farmer Michelle, you probably have a deep interest in food, you’ve read the books, seen the documentaries, care deeply about food justice, sovereignty and protecting our mother Earth. The topics are endless. We all eat, and our fascination with food and how our cultures evolve alongside it is clear. The reality is, Farmer Michelle read, studied and watched everything she could and still wasn’t prepared for being a farmer and farm owner.
In this course, we’ll come together to hear directly from the Farmer’s mouth the experience of being an Indigenous Female farmer. We’ll discuss articles and videos on topics ranging from Ag Labor Laws, Access to Land, and USDA discrimination among others, as well as the day-to-day limitations of farming. We’ll do our best to leave space within these topics to explore the sub-categories that intrigue participants most.
If you are eager to gain a deeper, more intimate understanding of our region's food systems and the trials and tribulations farmers, farm owners and field hands face, let's explore together in community!
January 29th, 2021
Portland Rewilding Conference
The annual North American Rewilding Conference is an Open Space conference. It is a think tank of some of the continent’s most inspiring rewilders and rewilding projects, as well as a social networking opportunity for rewilders. Here you will find individuals and grassroots organizations collaborating on a range of rewilding-related fields including ancestral technology, decolonization, wildlands restoration, ethnobiology, reintroduction of species, social and environmental justice, traditional ecological knowledge, and much more. This event is brought to you by Rewild Portland, a nonprofit organization serving the Portland area and the rural and wild areas beyond. Proceeds from this event go to supporting Rewild Portland's mission to promote cultural and environmental resilience.
At the Rewild Conference Michelle is leading a talk titled Compromising with Capitalism -
“There’s no doubt we are all modern peoples caught up in a ruthless economic structure. It can be frustrating, maddening, and disempowering when living as true to our values as we can still doesn’t feel like enough. Farmer Michelle’s been there, but has come up with a variety of ways to live by her ideals and values while still surviving and aiming to thrive within the oppressive systems we find ourselves in. After the presentation you’ll walk away with some new perspective, insights and helpful bumper rails to help you navigate making compromises within capitalism too!”
Register Here to attend the Rewild conference
Winter 2021
Culinary Breeding Network Winter Vegetable Sagra
The 2020-21 Variety Showcase + Winter Vegetable Sagra will take the form of joint virtual programming from December 2020 - March 2021, featuring TED-style talks, interactive Q&A sessions, cooking demos, and virtual field tours.
Sagra program content will focus on nine winter vegetables: Celeriac, Radicchio, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Collards, Winter Squash, Garlic and Purple Sprouting Broccoli. Presentations will explore plant histories, origins and domestication; medicinal, nutritional and culinary elements of species; farm visits; cooking demonstrations; art and folklore.
Variety Showcase will be a week of virtual video presentations and Q&A sessions featuring current projects focused on breeding for organic systems and considering culinary quality.
Farmer Michelle will be speaking on February 10th during the Sagra’s Indigenous Winter Vegetable Discussion Week.