Hello,
I’m a small farm owner and a retired agriculture teacher who is seeking a co-farmer interested in working with me as a business partner starting in spring or summer 2025. I am open to working with an inexperienced person and acting as a mentor. My motivations to open my farm are that I want to empower an aspiring farmer with access to land and guidance, to see my land more productive than I can manage alone, to feed my community, and I hope to recapture the warm mentoring relationships I enjoyed with students from my past.
I currently keep 12 sheep and 30 laying hens year round. In the warm season I also raise around 30 lambs, 6 pigs, and 50 broiler chickens. I practice multi-species rotational grazing. I have a productive hobby scale fruit orchard and tend a big personal vegetable and flower garden. A farm partner here is welcome to express their interests and passions; I will be happy to discuss how we can expand production and income in directions that interest a new partner here.
I am open to negotiating a profit sharing agreement with a partner who makes a season-long commitment. If our first season together goes well my preference is for our arrangement to evolve into a multi year co-farming partnership. Alternatively, I am open to starting with shorter term arrangement , similar to World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, WWOOF for someone who prefers start slowly with a short term test of how we work together. I am not considering selling my land. I am not offering salaried employment.
To be transparent about money, under my solo, part-time management the farm financially does slightly better than break even. The majority of my farm income comes from selling sheep breeding stock, eggs, pork, chicken, and lamb meat. I am not marketing crops. The farm has room to expand both the number of livestock and area in crop production. I see potential for increasing farm income through a motivated partner expanding production and marketing efforts.
This could be a residential arrangement. An co-farmer living here will share the farm with my family including my 12 year old, 4-H member child, and my life-partner Josh, who works off farm full time. We are open to a shared living situation and have shared the kitchen and bathroom in the main farmhouse with farm helpers in the past. We often enjoyed meals with our past farm helpers as well. My family eats gluten, meat, and dairy. We don’t currently (Autumn 2024) have a room available but could offer a furnished room the the farmhouse starting spring or summer 2025. We have had farm helpers in the dry season stay in a large tent we provided with a robust camp kitchen and private hang out area; we can offer this to someone comfortable in rustic living conditions. For a partner with their own tiny home, RV, yurt, or similar we can offer a flat private space with water and eclectic hookup, but we do not have a wastewater/septic dump. The farm has good internet with Starlink and is on-grid for electrical power.
More about projects here, the area, and my background: The farm location is about 50 miles southwest of Portland, between McMinnville and Sheridan, Oregon. The setting is rural and natural. Our neighbor to the south has 400 acres of forest open for hiking and our neighbor to the north and east with 80 acres offers permission to graze livestock, tap maple trees for syrup, mushroom hunt, and more. The farm has a productive well with a domestic water right, a spring, and two creeks, but no agricultural water right. I worked with Natural Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, on planting hedgerows, riparian native plant restoration, pasture renovation, and more. I could help a co-farmer learn to navigate the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, EQIP. I manage parts of the farm organically and am familiar with the USDA organic certification process, but am not certified organic and have very selectively used herbicide for noxious weed control.
I do lots of “Homesteady” projects for self sufficiency such as milking sheep and cheese making, canning to preserve the bounty of the garden, tapping maple trees for syrup, baking from scratch, hunting truffles with my dog. Most of this, for me, is for on-farm use only and not a profit driven venture. I will be happy to work on any of these projects with an interested farm partner. I graduated from University of California at Davis in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and a speciality in organic vegetable production. During my career I was an employee on several non-profit educational farms where I taught agriculture classes and led internships at the community college level. I managed school gardens at the K-12 level. I also have been an employee on for-profit farms. I hosted through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, WWOOF, for many years. For continuing education I have completed a permaculture design course, greywater installer course, and natural building courses in several modalities such as cob and straw bale building. I achieved my dream of farm ownership in 2019.
I can also share that I am a science nerd, a foodie, straight but not narrow, politically left leaning, not religious. A farm partner doesn’t have to be the same. I share my views to be transparent and help a potential partner make an informed decision about fit. I would like us to match in that we both have no criminal record, light to no alcohol and 420 use, and no tobacco.
Thank you so much for your time reading please feel free to reach out to introduce yourself or ask questions. I would welcome a short term trial stay, in-person interview over the winter 2024-2025.
Ann Partridge – Owner Operator at Wee Family Farm LLC
I would like to build a farm business partnership with a co-farm to help my land be more productive than I can manage alone. I would like to mentor a beginning farmer to help them move on to land of their own with more experience.
As I age, I would like to have a younger farm business partner living on the farm who is able to keep the farm productive and feeding our community.
hobby vegetable garden and orchard, multi-species rotational grazing
Domestic Well, Developed spring for stock water, creeks. No Irrigation water right.
loam and clay loam
40 x 40 ft barn
40 x 40 ft barn, field and deer fence, electric fence, hand tools.
EFU zone.
I am open to people of diverse backgrounds sharing the land with me and my family. We are straight but not narrow. We are not religious but respect the freedom of religion. I believe that creating thorough and equitable agreements is a key to a successful partnership.
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