Local Food Champion of the Season
ADDRESS: 38001 Alexander Rd. Philomath, OR 97370
Phone: 541-929-7367
Website: https://www.goodfootfarm.com/
OWNERS: Beth Hoinacki and Adam Ryan
YEARS IN BUSINESS: 21
WHAT THEY SELL: More than 200 varieties of 40 different crops, including a wide variety of vegetables, tree fruit, and blueberries
WHERE THEIR FOOD IS AVAILABLE: Corvallis Farmers’ Market and by CSA
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 1-5, plus seasonal blueberry pickers
WHY YOU SHOULD SUPPORT THIS FARM: I was first drawn to the Goodfoot Farm stand at the Corvallis Farmers’ Market by the cabbages. They were beautiful and varied in shape, with colors ranging from pale green to deep purple. One variety looked like a giant green upside-down ice cream cone. I’m not a big cabbage eater, but I began to try their other produce. The tomatoes I selected were a vibrant red, the size of apricots, and they tasted incredible. Everything I’ve tried, from spinach to squash, has been beautiful and exceptionally good to eat.
We in Corvallis are lucky to have a diverse selection of high quality food available at the Farmers’ Market. Goodfoot Farm is the only certified biodynamic farm I’ve seen at the market. Similar to organic farming, biodynamic farming prohibits the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but it goes further in a variety of ways. It is a holistic, regenerative agricultural method that minimizes imported fertilizers, while including animals, composting, cover cropping, cultivating biodiversity, and the promotion of soil, water, and ecosystem health.
The farm’s owners, Beth and Adam, are also committed to increasing food equity and access. Their CSA operates on a sliding scale, with the goal of allowing members to choose whether they can afford to pay more, regular price, or need a discount to afford the farm’s produce. Voluntary extra contributions are also used to increase wages for farmers employed by the farm. Goodfoot also donates food to local food banks and partners with the OSU Basic Needs Center to provide food to students experiencing food insecurity.
If you are looking for locally grown food farmed with a deep commitment to the land, the life on it, and the community, this is a farm to check out.
HOW DID GOODFOOT FARM GET STARTED?
Beth: “I grew up living on the land to some degree, and then I worked on a vegetable farm summers in college. So I’ve been engaged in some kind of gardening or farming activity pretty much my whole life, but I wasn’t pursuing it as a profession. And then I was goofing off after college, and decided to go back to school within agriculture, so I moved to Corvallis to go to Oregon State. I got a Ph.D. in botany and plant pathology, studying root rot disease of sweet corn here in the valley…but while in school, I figured out that really I wanted to be a farmer. I met my husband here in Corvallis, and then we bought the farm together in 1999 while I was still in school.
WHAT DREW YOU TO BIODYNAMIC FARMING?
Beth: “When I had small kids and was mostly staying at home, I picked up work in certification. It just so happened that the folks I started working in organic certification with were also the biodynamic certifier for the US. As I learned about biodynamics, and I was starting to explore farming, it just really resonated with me in terms of how you approach farming and designing a farming system.
I went into farming with a question, rather than with a statement. The question was, ‘what does your farm want to become?’ One of my aha moments early on was realizing that really my role as farmer was to facilitate the farm’s expression of itself. That’s a core, foundational principle of biodynamics – this idea of expression, with fulfilling the potential of a place.”
“The idea on a biodynamic farm is that it’s a system in balance. And it’s not just an ecological practice in the sense of the products that you use, or you methods, and your water and soil, but there is also a cosmic influence, of your relationship with the earth and so there’s a lot of ways that food quality can be expressed that we have difficulty naming and measuring.”
WHAT IS YOUR FARM’S BIGGEST CHALLENGE?
Beth: “It’s pretty much money. I think for any farmer, across all types of agriculture, money is the number one stressor. And I think for us, when we employ people, the money issue just gets caught up with the social piece and not being able to pay people as much as we’d like.”
“My husband works off the farm. And so that enables us to raise kids and send them to college and provide health insurance and that sort of a thing. It’s even harder for folks that both work on the farm to generate enough income.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT FARMING?
Beth: “I love being outside…I’m outside all the time, and I’m working intimately with the earth. It really shifts your perspective about what the earth is and who the earth is.” Also, “food is life, and so to be able to participate in that way and grow food that really nourishes people is just really rewarding.”
ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE FOLKS TO KNOW?
Beth: “We’re hopeful that we have capacity to contribute to a better food system. I see younger people at market, the growth of the organic market, consumers get more and more educated—access to information is huge, and I think we underestimate the power of the consumer to help generate change, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.”
To learn more about Biodynamic Farming, see the Demeter website and The Biodynamic Association’s Principles and Practices.
(Interview and article by Carla Wise)
The Local Food Champion of the Season is a project of the Food Action Team that highlights nearby farms and food businesses growing, producing, and preparing foods using practices which renew and enrich the land and community.