What’s on our Plate
School Visits
A Conservation/Agriculture Easement
for White Oak Farm
Farmers and Farmland for the Future
Natural Building Participant Speaks
What’s on Our Plate
By Taylor Starr
Summer melded seamlessly into a gorgeous fall this year at White Oak
Farm. We’ve had just enough rain to get winter cover crops, garlic,
and fava beans growing well, and lots of blue sky and warm sun to keep
work on the Common House going strong.
Now as we move into winter, we begin to divide our attention between
finishing our current projects and planning for next year’s programs,
gardens, and natural buildings. Stacey, Eugene, and I have a full plate
working to finish the interior of the Common House over the next six
months. I can imagine spending many rainy days inside its straw bale
walls - warm, dry, and covered with mud! We have lots of cob, earthen
plaster, floors, and finishing touches to keep us busy as we work towards
the day we move into the completed Common House. We also have smaller
projects planned for the winter, including fencing, planting a new orchard
of grafted fruit and nut trees, nursery work, repairing and upgrading
farm equipment and infrastructure, updating the website and advertising
next year’s programs, and meeting with prospective staff and apprentices
for the 2006 season. Happily, winter moves at its own pace and always
encourages moments of reflection and appreciation of its stark beauty.
Looking ahead to the new year and the return of spring also inspires
me. We are currently planning an expanded schedule of children’s summer
farm programs and natural building workshops. Please visit our website
to see if your family or a friend or neighbor could benefit from participating
in an educational event in 2006. We are always looking to reach out
to more folks with ideas and inspiration for living a life in balance
with the Earth. We are also looking for folks interested in learning
about natural building, organic gardening and children’Äôs education to
apprentice at the farm next season. In addition, White Oak Farm has
a staff position available beginning in February for a garden manager
and children’Äôs educator. If you or anyone you know is interested in
any of these positions please let us know. Please also feel free to
volunteer your skills, drop us a suggestion or stop by for a good homegrown
meal - ti takes lots of folks to eat everything that’s on our plates!
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School Visits
By Cassie Bingham
4th/5th grade teacher, Williams Elementary School
For the past several years my class and I have been fortunate enough
to visit White Oak Farm for field trips. I have been very impressed!
The farm staff has developed many hands-on lessons based on Oregon Science
Curriculum Standards.
Last school year we scheduled visits in both spring and fall. Students
were involved in many activities involving the water cycle and growth
of plants. The field trips were very enjoyable and worthwhile. A surprise
added benefit was that 5th graders all scored highly on the Statewide
Assessment in Science!
I am looking forward to our spring visits this upcoming year. What a
wonderful learning opportunity this is, and so very close to our school!
Students will remember their positive experiences at White Oak Farm
for a long time to come.
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A Conservation/Agricultural
Easement for White Oak Farm
By Stacey Denton
Many of you are familiar with White Oak Farm’s relationship with The
Equity Trust, Inc. Equity Trust is a non-profit land trust which holds
the title to White Oak Farm, and leases the land to the farm to make
our educational and agricultural endeavors possible. You may not know
that together White Oak Farm, Equity Trust and the Southern Oregon Land
Conservancy are in the midst of creating a landmark agriculture and
conservation easement to protect the farm in perpetuity. Once this easement
is finalized The Equity Trust will gift the land to White Oak Farm &
Education Center!
Conservation and agriculture easements can be difficult to understand
so they are usually the work of lawyers and specialists. But they are
also an exciting trend in the world of land preservation and social
justice because they can protect land by attaching prohibitions and
obligations to the deed. These restrictions then become part of the
title (like an easement granted to a power company) and are attached
to the deed forever (in perpetuity).
In our case, we are designing an easement that will obligate the present
and future owners of the land to farm organically and/or to provide
educational programs related to environmentally sustainable living.
The owners of the farm will have to derive a significant portion of
their income from one of these activities. In addition, the easement
calls for our 50 acres of forest land to be managed with the principle
goal of developing old growth or late successional forest characteristics.
All of the easement’Äôs stipulations will be monitored by the Southern
Oregon Land Conservancy (SOLC).
We feel that this work with the Equity Trust is cutting edge because
it will preserve White Oak Farm for farming and education even when
we are no longer around. In the event that any owner of this land is
not complying with the easement obligations, SOLC would seek to correct
the situation, and could instigate selling the land to someone who demonstrates
that they would meet the farming/education obligations.
The affordability of this land will also be preserved for any future
farmers/educators buyers as part of this document. The easement will
make the property worth only what it is valuable for as agricultural
and educational land. The farm will never be sold at the market rate
for 62 acres with great views and potential for hobby farming, it will
be valued at its potential for economically viable agriculture and as
an education center.
Does that make sense? It is complex, but exciting, and The Equity Trust
is at the forefront of this movement to secure alternative models of
land tenure across the country! We are inspired to be working with them
and appreciative of this opportunity to preserve this beautiful piece
of the Williams Valley for future farmers and educators.
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Farmers and Farmland for the Future
By Leigh Youngblood
The Equity Trust
Keeping farms productive and affordable to farmers now and in the future
is the goal of Equity Trust’s CSA Land Tenure Initiative. Working with
farmers, community groups, and land conservation organizations throughout
the nation, Equity Trust is spreading an integrated and innovative farmland
protection approach. Combining the legal tools used by nonprofit land
conservation trusts and affordable housing community land trusts is
the key.
Equity Trust quickly recognized the important agricultural, ecological,
and educational services provided by, and for, the land and the people
of White Oak Farm. Protecting this land involves a permanent conservation
easement that requires the land to be kept in organic agriculture and
a purchase option that limits the resale value of the farm to an affordable
agricultural value. The easement is monitored annually and the option
is in place to ensure that any future owner uses the land for similar
agricultural and educational purposes.
Land trusts in Oregon and across the country are working hard to save
farms from development. But increasingly, even farms protected with
conservation easements are being sold at prices farmers cannot afford.
The result is the loss of small family farms and local access to healthy
organic food. Creating opportunities for people committed to community-based
farming to acquire land is essential for the long-term health of our
communities. To learn more about these ideas visit www.equitytrust.org.
Copies of the newly released DVD, Beyond Conservation Easements: Farmers
and Farmland for the Future, can be obtained from Equity Trust by calling
413-863-9038 or emailing info@equitytrust.org. The Equity Trust has
similar projects to White Oak Farm in CA, NY, MA, and New Hampshire.
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Natural Building
Participant Speaks
By Nabha Goldfeder, Applegate, OR
Thanks to the straw bale building and natural plaster workshops hosted
by White Oak Farm, I now have the skills and confidence to build my
own little structure using plants from the field and clay from the earth!
Teachers Prasad Boudreaux and Shahoma McAlister were delightful to learn
from and work with. They easily shared their wealth of knowledge from
many years of natural building and earthen plastering experience. The
staff and interns at White Oak supported participants’Äô learning process,
added a valuable dimension of varied backgrounds, natural building skills
and diverse interests based in sustainability, and were great people
to get to know. Staff and volunteers also created scrumptious, farm-fresh
feasts which nourished our bodies, minds and spirits. Singing together
in circle before each meal was a sweet way to share ourselves and offer
thanks.
White Oak successfully reached out and invited the greater community
to join in. Scholarships made the work shops accessible to all (THANK
YOU for mine!). The organic flow of natural building created a space
for the laughter of children (big and little). I’d never seen a dirt
clod hold together so well! Shahoma and Prasad balanced the workdays
with informative lectures, hand outs, slide shows, and one-on-one consultations
for those with on-going projects in all stages.
Bonds of friendship were formed and then rekindled when, workshop attendant,
Lisa, and I returned to White Oak for the natural plaster workshop and
reclaimed "our wall." Giggling we recalled the giant persuader
(a huge, heavy, wooden, mallet made to keep a bale wall flush) and inspected
to see if our window bucks had stayed level (they had). The Straw Bale
Building Workshop made the newspaper and I found a few moments of fame
when I was recognized in a local hardware store and asked about straw
bale building.
Fun times and great learning add to the beauty of the space. I look
forward to more great workshops in this community space that so many
have built. I hope you all get to see it and feel the warmth and love
put into the project. I give thanks for the innovation, dedication,
hard work and vision of Stacey & Taylor, the interns, teachers Shahoma
and Prasad, and many others for making this dream real.