My wife and I are planning on moving to Oregon this summer. We have been farming in Iowa the past two years and find it hard to market here. Not enough people care about their food I guess. Anyways we are wanting to move to Oregon after we get our house sold here in Iowa, and start farming around Corvallis area. My wife goes to school for horticulture and would like to finish her degree in Corvallis. I plan on raising a variety of livestock from broilers to hogs. Maybe cattle down the road. When my wife finishes school, she would like to have a market garden. This is something my wife and I have been dreaming about since we’ve met, and if you know of some land for us to use, that’d be amazing and greatly appreciated!
I am not familiar with Oregon's agricultural laws. That being said there's a few things we do require. A water source is a must and a sewer would be great too! We have booked a consultation with an attorney late April to see what we can and can't do, and to see what we need to look for in our property of choice.
I was born and raised on a conventional farm in Iowa. My family raises corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and cattle. I went to school for an agricultural degree, but didn't complete it. For the past 2 years my wife and I have been raising poultry and had a big garden.
Starting with pasture broiler production, we would raise as much as we can market with the licensing and certification that allows us to market to restaurants, institutions, farmers markets, and direct consumers. We have a consultation in April to discuss what's needed for this. We then would get a layer flock and market to those same channels. After that we would expand into pasture hogs, marketing as much as we can, and selling the rest live. Year 5 we would like to expand into pasture raised turkey. While my wife goes to school, she plans on getting an orchard started so it'll be closer to ready by the time she's done with schooling. During her last year she plans on expanding the garden to service all of our family needs, and our friends/family. When she's done with school she plans on diving head first into a market garden and steadily growing the customer base. After awhile she plans on hiring some seasonal help for greenhouse operations and also implementing a cut flower garden. Towards the end of the 5 year plan, we plan on incorporating agritourism in the form of an airbnb and a wedding venue.
Long term plans would be to expand our farm customer base exponentially and rebuild our finances after the initial capital hungry start.
My wife and I plan on living in a camper until we find a more permanent place to build a home for us and our future family. We are looking at buying land, but if a lease opportunity is available, we would still be interested!
Fundamentally, my wife and I value our freedom. We both served in the military and believe that freedom is a right, not a privilege. We love hearing life stories from anybody and everybody and hope our story could be just as captivating some day.
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