Founder of Oregon Tilth at City Club

Organic farmer, founder of Oregon Tilth spoke in Florence Feb. 3 at City Club

A national leader in sustainable organic food production, Corvallis farmer Harry MacCormack,  addressed the City Club of Florence at their luncheon meeting, Friday, February 3, at the Ocean Dunes Golf Course on Munsel Lake Road. MacCormack  described the significant economic and health benefits of resilient bio-active living soils and regionally-based local food systems. The meeting was open to the public, at no charge.

In addition to teaching at Oregon State University for over thirty years, MacCormack also co-founded farmers markets in Portland and Corvallis.

Over thirty years ago, MacCormack helped co-found Oregon Tilth, now recognized as a lead force in national and international organic production certification. He continues farming while authoring related books and publications and organizing "food webs" to assist local food production.
MacCormack's "Bean and Grain Project" is currently working to shape Willamette Valley producer efforts moving thousands of acres of grass-seed and other chemically--dependent crops over to organic beans and grains. In addition, he is working to expand local storage and milling facilities. Some of these beans are available at the the local "Real Food Co-op."

MacCormack described how shifting away from chemically-dependent growing can literally result in changed soils types, with significantly higher valuable mineral ratings.

Additional information on his publications or related work in Oregon, including soils workshops, is available at his web site:

sunbowfarm.org and http://www.sunbowfarm.org/workshops.php. 

His 4th editon of The Transition Document: Toward a Biologically Resilient Agriculture is available as of 2010.

KXCR, the newly licensed community FM noncommercial radio station,  recorded and archived this event for future free use when the station goes on-air with an established website for downloads.

Seeds For Free

FYI, We recently received quite a few packages of donated vegetable seeds at the Food Share Garden.
If anyone at the community garden or the GROW group would like any of them, please come by.  Looks like a mix of Territoral, Renee's Garden and Livingston Seeds. It's more than we will be using this year. Most are 2010 and 2011 dated.  Thanks, Bart 

Notes from GROW

The last meeting: There was a discussion about a school garden. The elementary school has plenty of room. There was a suggestion for doing gardening apprenticeships as a requirement for graduation.

Melonie Rollins  discussed her new project:  She has 4 garden rows which have been converted into a hydroponic aquaculture and her goal is to see how much food can be produced. She is doing this at Mercer Lake.  She is introducing fish to help nourish the plants. The process uses Lava balls and coco hulls which the roots can be set into and this provides the nutrients. The optimum water temp is 65 degrees and the goal is to feed four families.

Additionally, she is starting a bio remediation site. She has all the substrate and mycelium and this will be used to reclaim compromised soil and land. The idea is to start small and see where it goes. This great process trans-mutates  damaged, toxic soil.

(If anyone knows where the pole barn is that was used for the Farmer's Market and stored behind the business park at Park Place on 126 , she would appreciate getting it back. It is a galvanitzed steel pole barn which is a great size for a greenhouse, and belongs to her parents.)

John and Maria Yager offered to  open two of their acres at the farm for a gardening a co-operative.

They also brought a how-to DVD from Bountiful Gardens. It had wonderful information about double digging, how to build a compost pile from the ground up, fertilization, starting plants and transplanting.

COMPOST:  If you are interested in ordering bags of compost, they come in a pallet of 40 and the cost per bale is $7.40 each.

We will also be ordering chicken manure in two sizes....loose for approximately 2.50 a bag and pellet, a more balanced nutrient..final prices to be announced.

 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH - 5:30 p.m. at the Bromley Room, moderated by Ann Waters.  We showed the film "Forks Over Knives", a compelling look at the life time research of two doctors who conclude that a meat based diet is the cause of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and numerous other human afflictions.

The NEXT MEETING to be posted:  Liz Purtell /Moderator.  we will discuss our goals, upcoming projects and the ordering of compost and manure.

Ann Waters will be the moderator.

Thanks to Pat Stutzman for moderating our last meeting. Good job!