A drive through Oregon’s Willamette Valley in late summer is a sensory experience. The smell of freshly baled hay floats in the sun-baked air, rows of grape vines march up a hill, an old red barn sits nestled among blueberry bushes, and immediately our fast paced lives slow down to a crawl.
Visiting farmland tugs at a primal place in our hearts that urges us to stay one moment longer. While we hang on to this pastoral picture of family farms, the reality is quite different, and in fact its survival depends upon us. Small farms are ceding to factory farms and garden diversity is shifting to monocultures, all of which is taking a toll on our environment, our culture and our lives.
Here at Pinolo we believe in supporting local farms so we decided to talk to one of our farm partners… one that represents a new generation of farmer, and one with a deep understanding of our current agricultural system and a vision for a better future. Meet Narendra Varma and his vertically integrated cooperative farm Our Table.
With a background in high tech, a love of food, and a curiosity for “systems,” Narendra and his wife Machelle bought 58 acres in Sherwood, OR ten years ago and started Our Table Cooperative as a hands-on way to look at food from a systemic perspective. The result is an organic farm growing berries, produce, eggs and pastured chickens (of which we purchase their beautiful blueberries and raspberries).
His decade of experience running a cooperative farm, coupled with his curiosity for food systems, gives Narendra a unique perspective of the current challenges and insights into the future of agriculture. Read on to be inspired.
Our Table founders Narendra and Machelle Varma.
Q: What’s the benefit of being a cooperative rather than just owning a farm?
A: Cooperatives have a rich history in agriculture (and food) because all farmers know that risks are high and rewards are generally small – therefore, sharing risk allows one to weather bad years in exchange for also sharing the rewards in good years. Our Table is unique because it is a multi-stakeholder cooperative that brings together workers, independent regional food producers, and eaters into a single vertically integrated structure – a community food system that is owned and controlled by the community.
Q: What are the biggest challenges farming faces today?
A: Fundamentally the biggest challenge is that the retail price of food is too low to pay for the costs of farming without exploiting nature (use of chemicals on land for example) or people (poor wages and working conditions). Americans spend less than 9% of their income on food – less than most other countries and this is a huge problem – the average American household spends more on TV/phone/internet than on food. It is a question of what we value as a society.
Q: How does this affect the lives of people/consumers?
A: This economic imbalance mentioned above is what drives all the other problems – environmental degradation, rural poverty, poor quality food produced with large amounts of chemicals, nutritionally deficient highly processed foods, etc. Chronic disease alone costs hundreds of billions each year in perpetual “treatment” and most chronic diseases are a result of poor nutrition and/or environmental degradation (e.g. asthma). Of course climate change is also a huge factor that we don’t discuss much but should. It IS already impacting all our lives and will continue to do so. Regenerative agriculture is an excellent response to climate change since appropriate practices can capture huge amounts of carbon in the soil and improve soil fertility/productivity while also employing lots of people.
Q: What’s your vision for addressing this challenge, and how can people support that?
A: We try and pay farmers a “decent” wage – our average wage is $15/hour which is considered good but is of course still very low. Consider that everyone working at Our Table would have done better financially by being on unemployment these past few months thanks to the CARES act unemployment benefit of an additional $600/week. For workers who are truly essential, this is an abomination. We all agree that healthcare workers are essential, especially during a pandemic, but I eat three times a day and I see a doctor or use healthcare services no more than 5-6 times a year. The solutions have to be systemic because the problems are systemic. We can try and create an oasis here at Our Table but it’s a pretty small oasis and doesn’t necessarily scale well since our food is priced out of reach for many people (including all our farmers!).
Q: The pandemic has turned industries upside down, how has this affected farming and are there positive takeaways from it?
A: In the early days of the pandemic related lockdowns, the industrial food system effectively collapsed due to long supply chains and low inventories. This system is very “efficient” in one sense but also very fragile and really a monoculture with little diversity. In contrast local farms and stores were fully stocked and able to help feed our communities without missing a beat. I think many people saw this and hopefully will remember it so that even in the post-pandemic future, they will choose to support local food systems. Additionally, the fine-dining segment of the restaurant industry has essentially collapsed and is unlikely to come back any time soon. Many small farms used to depend on restaurants as their main customers so that has had a huge impact. I predict that many small farms will fail if the pandemic does not get better by early 2021.
All Our Table products are available for free pickup or home delivery online at https://www.ourtable.us/farmstore.html#/
3 Ways to Support Small Farms
Sign up for a CSA or buy produce from farmers markets. You can rest easy knowing all your money goes directly to supporting small farms.
Speak with the farmers. Build in 10 minutes on your next visit to a farmer’s market and learn more about what they do,, how it benefits us and how we can better support them.
Try something new. See a new vegetable variety you’ve never cooked with? Ask the farmer more about it and give it a try! Not only does this expand our palate but it supports crop diversity.
