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For the second straight year, the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project hosted a farm tour and dinner at Stalford Seed Farms. Stalford Seed Farms is located just south of Tangent, Oregon on McLagan Road. The farm is owned and operated by Harry Stalford and Willow Coberly. Willow has been a leading advocate for and participant in the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project since its inception. Five years ago she was the first large scale farmer to step forward and experiment with growing transitional dry-land beans and hard red wheat. Today Stalford Seed Farms is growing thirty-five acres of certified organic hard red wheat, milling it themselves and packaging it in Brownsville.
What was once a 9000-acre grass seed operation is now using nearly a third of its farmland for food production. This includes more than two thousand acres of conventionally grown winter wheat and clover, 155 acres of certified organic crops, and 135 acres of transitional crops. In their mix of organic and transitional crops are malting barley, brown flax, pinto beans, black beans, hulless oats, garbanzo beans, and several experimental plots of other bean varieties.
Willow Coberly's mother, Gian Mercurio, opened the evening with a talk about Stalford Seed Farms' part in the Bean and Grain Project. Gian then took two separate groups of forty guests on a tour of the fields just east of their farm buildings on McLagan road, giving a detailed talk on the various crops they are growing, how they are used, where they will be sold, and what Stalford Seed Farms is planning for the future.
The tour was followed by a lovely dinner prepared from locally sourced beans, grains, and produce with beer provided by A2R Farms and music by Skinner City of Eugene.
The following farms, bakeries, breweries, businesses, restaurants, non-profts, and individuals made donations to the Bean and Grain Project farm tours: Casa de Dilla, Hideaway Bakery, The Bread Stop, Sweet Briar Farms, Adam's Sustainable Table, Holy Cow Café and Catering, Hey Bayles Farm, Camas Farm, Horton Road Organics Farm, Groundwork Organics Farm, Oakshire Brewery, Gathering Together Farm, The Earth Smart Store, Hummingbird Wholesale, Lynne Fessenden, Allison Filderman, and staff from the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition, Max Peschel, Krishna Khalsa, Marcia Rhea, Nancy Rohn, Randy at Main Street Coffee in Brownsville, the Ten Rivers Food Web, and, of course, the participating farms–Stalford Seed Farms, Hunton Family Farm, and A2R Farms. Much thanks to all of you for making this happen.
Go to Chef and Baker's Tour. Go to Hunton Family Farm Tour.
Special thanks is extended to The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition and The Ten Rivers Food Web, Hummingbird Wholesale, and the Evergreen Hill Fund of Oregon Community Foundation for for their continued support of the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project. Also thanks to Erik Silverberg for farm tour photos.
