Interview with a Regenerative Farmer: Sarahlee Lawrence

In this interview with a regenerative farmer, we selected our local, central Oregon farmer, Sarahlee Lawerence from Rainshadow Organics. Sarahlee grew up on the farm, left & then came back, inspired by the writings of journalist & author Michael Pollan, with a vision to take farming to a whole new place. Rainshadow Organics was born in 2010 on the family farm in Terrebonne Oregon, a place we have frequented and love. 

(Photo: A farm-to-table dinner prepared by Rainshadow Organics)

Q: What got you started in the regenerative ag movement? I know you grew up here in Central Oregon on a farm, left and then came back. Why?

A: Yeah, so I grew up here on the farm, but I left as quickly as possible. Farming wasn't my jam. Don't misunderstand me...as a kid, growing up here was great. I loved my horses, the space, my parents, but I was seriously hungry for the world. I got into river guiding. I spent a decade working as an international river guide all over Central  & South America, East Africa, & the American West. I spent 15 years in the Grand Canyon, & just really had a splendid time. At this time I was also doing some entomology surveying in the Colorado watershed above Lake Powell. At that point, I was getting a little salty with tourism, so this allowed me to raft by myself & started doing a lot or reading. I read Michael Pollan's book, Omnivore's Dilemma & it was just a really magic moment: to think about food as our biggest impact on the planet. So, interestingly enough, I have an undergrad degree from Whitman in Environmental Studies, a Master's in Environmental Science from the University of Montana & no one ever said that food is related to the environment. You know we are all recycling, driving electric cars, doing various things to positively impact the environment... But somehow the connection between farming, growing our food, & the earth is lost.  I was working in river conservation at the time. I spent a lot of time doing a river clean up program in Peru, and became very outspoken against big dams and protecting international rivers. That was my way of contributing, but it really wasn't  “working out”. In a way, it just felt very small. So when I read Michael Pollan's book, it opened my eyes. After all, I was raised on a farm, this felt familiar. Farming was where I could make a large impact. Stewarding a specific piece of land, raising food & contributing in this other way. This was a real shift because I always thought there was only room for one farmer on a farm and maybe when you are only raising hay that's true but when you start raising food, full plate farming,  you need a lot of input. I started realizing that food needs to be raised locally & organically and the importance diversity has on a farm & the power behind healthy soils. The timing of my return was perfect. My dad was ready to be done with farming & while my parents were a little skeptical, they were willing to let me dabble. I came home in 2010.  Fortunately, my parents had a couple of acres of irrigation rights that hadn't been used so the ground was able to be certified organic immediately. That was a HUGE win. After my 1st season of farming, we were able to start transforming the rest of the farm.

Q: So how long have you been farming organically on a full scale & what does that mean?

A: We have been farming organically now for 7 years. We are a full-diet farm with dozens of varieties of certified organic vegetables, herbs, berries, flowers, pork, chicken, eggs, turkey, beef, and grains on 200 acres. The key here is crop rotation and diversity. We are always growing our soil. Our soil fertility is built with our composted horse & bovine manure.  We also employ our chickens and an army of worms who supply castings for worm tea that we inject into our irrigation system.  We foster an intricate ecosystem with companion planting, nutrient cycles, flowers, bees, riparian areas, crop rotation, and undisturbed native desert.  We pride ourselves on looping our nutrients and resources into our community and back to our land.

Q: So real quick, let's expand on composting...how is that done here?

A: So almost all of our food scraps, the leftovers from our farm-to-table meals, go to the pigs.  Some food scraps go to the compost pile but primarily manure goes there. We have really grown our cattle operation over the last few years. In the summer, the cows graze on 10,000 acres, so obviously we aren't collecting their poop then...that would be quite the task. But when they are at the farm over the winter, that’s when we're really piling up and turning in the manure.  We also use Project Green Bin for our compost. This, by the way, is a great way for Central Oregonians to become part of the farming system, further closing the loop and fighting food waste. (Blog side note … Project Green Bin is a service that collects delivers your food scraps to the local farm Rainshadow Organics to be composted for their farming needs, as well as in return for your home garden needs. There are a growing number of these businesses throughout the country, another one we like is Reclaimed Organics in NYC. Look for ways in your community to close the loop). 

Q: So, what do you think is the largest impact regenerative farming will or could have on the environment?

A: Restoring the soil.

I've been told that a living soil, a high functioning living soil, produces more oxygen & sequesters more carbon than the rainforest. In one teaspoon of soil, there are more living things than humans on the planet, so the soil is like...kinda galactic. 

These microbial communities need to be cultivated and nurtured over time by farmers whether that is through perennial planting, no-tillage, crop rotation, cover crops, etc. All of these practices need to be employed.

Q: What is the biggest challenge in growing soil?  

A: Tillage is a really challenging piece for farmers, especially for organic farming, because it's one of the few ways you have to really fight weeds. You can't use chemicals so...we handpick the weeds on like a 2-acre scale and do a ton of weeding on a 25-acre scale. But growing a cover crop, incorporating a cover crop so the soil can digest that cover & turn it into nutrients for plants to come & essentially feeding that soil...I haven't seen a way to really do that without tillage. We try to do a ‘folding in’ of the soil rather than deep roto tillage. Full deep hard tillage rips those microbial communities apart.  We are working to make our soil the highest functioning it can be for the purpose of the nutrients and flavor of our food.  We recently joined the Real Food Campaign, which I am really excited about. Through testing the soil around the crop, be that kale, a carrot, a cherry tomato, etc you send those samples throughout the season and they test the nutrient density of that food with the soil it is grown in. So you start to see the health as it relates to the health of the soil. 

Q: You are a full diet farm, what drove you to implement that? 

A: Well I wanted to be able to offer the community an option outside the grocery store, where you could feed yourself, your family entirely... from the farm. More than a vegetable or fruit farm, the whole or full diet farm embodies the full extent of farming. It has the makings of a well rounded omnivorous diet, year-round. 

Q: What do you say about the critics who argue that this type of farming, eating organically, shopping CSAs, and diverse diet availability is just for the 1%? 

A: We priced our full diet + free choice CSA, just $10 more a week above food stamps. So we are on par with the national standard for food stamps.

Our meats are the most expensive, but they are an extremely important component of our farm and they take much longer to raise compared to produce. And meat really should be that way because people should be consuming less meat. We wanted to place extra value on our meat because we offer it in smaller supplies since it's such good quality. At the same time, we offer unlimited vegetables at a lower price point, because that's what you should be consuming the most of.

The bottom line is... food that is healthy for you and the earth shouldn't be just for the wealthy. 

(Photos: some delicious multi-colored carrots and tomatillos from our CSA box that we receive monthly from the farm)

Q: How are you ensuring the profitability of your price point?

A: Yeah, so, whole-diet CSAs are designed to be more economical than shopping piecemeal in conventional outlets or through farmers' markets. So just like in any food supplier, some items have a greater profit margin than others. To sell a whole-diet CSA, of course, a farm has to produce more than just, well, produce. Nonetheless, diversified farms are driven by environmental and economic sensibilities, just like any other business. We take the practice of repurposing & reusing to its fullest level:  the leftover straw from growing grain can be transferred to barns for animal bedding; manure that accumulates over the winter can be used to fertilize vegetable crops. No middlemen. There is a sense of independence in keeping everything in one place and having control over all of these different variables, There’s a reason there aren’t that many completely diversified farms out there, and it’s because they’re so challenging to manage. I have found that when consumers make the commitment to eat a full plate from a farm compared to buying one-off items from a grocery store they are closing the loop between food farm & the environment. (Blog side note: despite demand, whole-diet programs nationwide are scarce, numbering in perhaps the dozens in the United States compared with an estimated 6,000-plus vegetable and meat programs).

Q: How do you suggest the average person, who doesn't know much about regenerative farming get involved?

A: Great questions. One of the best ways and we offer this, is to get your hands in the dirt. Come out for a workday, see what farming is all about, the workload, the seasonality to the complexity of a full diet farm.  Find a farmer in your area, start there, buy a new ingredient, challenge what you eat, what you feed your family, a seasonal item maybe. Go on a culinary adventure... this will expand your creativity and will reaffirm your connection to food, the whole system of food.

So where does Rainshadow Organics go from here?

A: It became clear to me that the continuation of our farm story was at the table. As I became more and more passionate about the full diet we added more and more ingredients and expanded our farm experience to the public. We now offer communal meals through our  Sunday brunches, long table dinners, farm tours, cooking classes that give people a peephole into full plate farming, regenerative agriculture, and the value of growing soil. This helps extend our CSA participants but also & maybe of greater value... start the conversations. Conversations over a meal, a meal that was cultivated entirely with what is here on our farm. We want to expand our programming and inspire & educate people.

Q: Last question...what, going forward do you think is the greatest need for the regenerative ag movement, full diet CSAs?

A: Easy! WE NEED MORE SMALL FARMERS… there is such a need.