Horton Road Organics: Blachly, OR

After visiting two of the three Food For Lane County farms, we stopped by Bill Booth's Horton Road Oraganics. Bill and his wife Debra own and operate a six acre organic farm where most of the workforce is made up of interns and apprentices. For a long time the farm organized a very popular CSA, though now due to other time consuming commitments, the farm has dropped its CSA program and now focuses all of its produce sales at three local weekly farmers markets. The bottom line is for the farm to make enough money to support its owners, however, the owners like to focus heavily on the training of it's interns and apprentices to become farmers in the future.
























Crew manager Lisa, an apprentice on the farm, talked to us about how to manage a crew of peer-workers who may not have any farming experience, much like what we have to organize on our farm.

Although Horton Road Organics farm is not a student farm at all, Bill had lots of good advice for us in regards to running a successful farm. He was also an apprentice at a student farm when he was in school so had some in depth personal knowledge on what it takes to successfully run a student farm such as our own.

Since many of Bill's workers are inexperienced, clever inovations dot the farm to make the work easier and to keep things running smoothly. For example, the photo above shows a sign which tells the workers what job needs to be done with what tool in a specific bed. Some of these inovations that have been developed to deal with interns could be directly applied to work with students on our farm.

Education at Horton Road Organics was a key element -  Throughout the season there are weekly classes and at the end of the season each apprentice presented their dream farm.  This sounded like a great idea for a course on small farms.  Topics such as irrigation, farm equipment, crop rotation, crop selection, marketing, and small farm business planning could be taught and then at the end of the term each student could present their dream farm fto the class for discussion and critique.  

Key points from Bill 

• create a place where students can get out of the classroom where they can get their hands in the dirt and do something that feels real!
• create consistency-  a farm manager or coordinator is essential to create consistency from week to week and semester to semester.  If students don't get the job done, the farm manager can make sure tasks are completed. 
• People respond well to plants and gardens, especially if they can see care and attention being given to it. This is a good argument for staying small, at least at the beginning, and for a central campus location.