OSU Small Farms Conference

 On Sat Feb. 23, one thousand compact farmers piled into LaSells Stewart Center in Corvallis for the sold-out annual OSU Small Farms Conference. This conference was part of a series of associated farming events put on by OSU this week including the first-ever “Back to the Root-2019 Pacific Northwest Black Growers Gathering,” the “Pacific Northwest Flower Growers Association,” and the “Oregon Farmers Market Association Membership Meeting and Banquet.”

LBCC Horticulture faculty and students attended different workshops including sessions on legislative issues facing small farmers, successful seed-starting, and growing specialty-cut flowers.

Presenters Miranda Duschack and Mimo Davis, the two-woman-team of Urban Buds in St. Louis, Missouri (They have one employee besides themselves) were featured speakers at the Conference. Attendees could follow the “flower track” which, as well as Urban Buds, included talks by Diane Szukovathy of Jello Mold Farm in the Skagit Valley in Washington state, and Bethany Little of Charles Little & Company in Eugene.

There was also a “Spanish track” offered at the conference, according to the website, and being in mono-culture Corvallis, there was the added benefit of conference attendees who had dark skin, including Davis, who is partners with Duschack, who is white, (they got married in St. Louis) and they have a son and there were lots of other kids at the conference; all KINDS of diversity going on.

All of the “flower track” talks unexpectedly emphasized experimentation. The growers of this national trend of “local, specialty-cut flowers” are constantly trying out new kinds of flowers and new ways to grow them in the winter using “season extenders” like heated or unheated greenhouses. (Davis and Duschack bought their one-acre farm in the heart of St. Louis because of the its vintage glass greenhouse.)

The flower talks also emphasized the “ephemeral beauty” of flowers, which require very high standards of culling, cleanliness, and even refrigerated trucks to arrive looking lovely at the markets, wholesalers and florists where they are sold.

“We have very pretty compost piles,” agreed presenters Szukovathy and Little. The presenters are familiar with each other from other conferences and refer to each other’s talks. In one of Urban Buds’ talks, Duschack referred to spreadsheets she saw in a presentation by Szukovathy showing the relatively lucrative nature of selling perennials versus annuals, which need to be replanted every year.

Erin McMullen of “Raindrop Farms” in Philomath introduced each flower talk. “Raindrop Farms” sells at the Corvallis First Alternative North Co-op and Farmers Markets as well as locations in Portland and Seattle, and the minute you see the beautiful fresh colors of their columbines, you’ll never forget the “ephemeral beauty” of this area’s own particular version of specialty-cut local flowers.

According to Urban Buds’ website, horticulturist Mimo Davis had a first career in social work in New York City; “While her life in the Big Apple is far behind her, Mimo still knows and appreciates the emotional and healing power of flowers.”

The presentation on “Food Hubs,” attended by LBCC student Erin Day-Gennett, talked about expanding the assumption that everyone’s going to get their food from super-markets only.

And "Black Voices in Oregon Agriculture: Sharing our Experiences" looked at the history of farming in Oregon when you’re black. Part of the talk, according to attendee Ms. Penniman, catalogued Oregon’s history as the only Union state with apartheid, which had a law on the books that required all black people in Oregon to be whipped twice a year “until they left.”

The emotional nature of this information, said Penniman, who is white, caused a man who is a veteran as well as black as well as a farmer to decry this pattern of abuse; and an emotional and important conversation between attendees followed. Penniman bought the book Farming While Black at the conference, because she shares the same last name as the author: Leah Penniman.

“Are you the right age to remember Little Richard?” asked lay-person-not-author Penniman. “He has this last name too.”