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CapitalPress.com
August 7, 2015
People & Places
OSU specialist mentors small farmers
Lauren Gwin helps
new, growing farms
take root and thrive
Capital Press
Capital Press Managers
Mike O’Brien .............................Publisher
Joe Beach ..................................... Editor
Elizabeth Yutzie Sell .... Advertising Director
Carl Sampson ................Managing Editor
Barbara Nipp ......... Production Manager
Samantha McLaren .... Circulation Manager
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EO Media Group
dba Capital Press
An independent newspaper
published every Friday.
Capital Press (ISSN 0740-3704) is
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Lauren Gwin is associate director of Oregon State University’s Center for Small Farms and Community Food Systems. She also co-found-
ed the national Niche Meat Processor Network, an online service that allows small processors to pose questions, offer suggestions, figure
out the rules and support each other with peer-to-peer consulting.
and support each other with
peer-to-peer consulting.
She’s also developed an
Introduction to Food Sys-
tems course at OSU.
To her, the term local
food takes on a regional
definition. Some food can
be grown in close proximi-
ty to markets, but others —
such as beef — need more
landscape.
“When I talk about local
food I’m talking about en-
vironmentally regenerative,
possibly organic, humane
and minimizing the use of
external inputs,” she said.
The OSU small farms
center is expanding its focus
beyond ground-level opera-
tions to include long-term
profitability, Gwin said.
Not every county needs
or can support a meat pro-
cessing plant, for example,
but there are ways local
producers can cooperate
to save money and time.
Small producers might
share livestock transpor-
tation to a plant, so one
producer isn’t wasting time
and money taking just a
few head “over the moun-
tain” for processing.
“We have a vision for
agriculture and food in Or-
egon and the region and the
country,” she said. “These
farms will persist.”
A combination of tech-
nical knowledge, business
management and support-
ive political and consumer
environments will help that
come about, Gwin said.
“It’s important to our
economy that these things
thrive,” she said.
Western Innovator
Lauren Gwin
Boise
Sean Ellis .......................... 208-914-8264
Background: Grew up in Connecticut, was an English and liberal
Central Washington
Dan Wheat ........................ 509-699-9099
arts major at Harvard, earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Science,
Policy and Management from the University of California-Berkeley.
At OSU since 2008.
Notable: Co-founded and coordinates the Niche Meat Proces-
sor Network, an online resource to help small processors wade
through regulatory issues, share tips, ask questions.
At a glance: Bubbling with information and enthusiasm for local
food systems, small growers and processors and the need to
help them thrive. “You ask a simple question, you get a pageant,”
she says. “I come from a long line of people who tell very long
narratives.”
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press
“He’ll be paid with some halibut and
some green,” Miltenberger said with a
laugh.
Miltenberger worked on the ranch as
a kid and then after a two-year stint in
the U.S. Army, he returned in 1973 to the
490-acre operation and at age 22 part-
nered up with his father, Don. The two
worked together until the father retired in
the mid-1990s, leaving the management
of the ranch to his son.
With sole responsibility for the cattle
and hay, Miltenberger found it difficult to
talk himself into taking an extended sum-
mer vacation. But after downsizing the
ranch to 240 acres, he decided it was time
to take some time for himself.
He has no regrets.
“This has been one of the best fishing
trips I’ve ever been on,” he said, noting
he had previously made some day-long
halibut and salmon fishing trips off the
Oregon coast.
“The fishing is peaceful here,” he
explained. “I feel like I can relax, not
think about work and about the things I
have to do. It’s been a time to rest and
rebuild some energy.”
The fishing party of eight caught
both halibut and salmon during each
of their six days of fishing and returned
with about 100 pounds of fillets each.
Larry Shipley of Roseburg, Ore.,
extended the invite to make the Alas-
kan trip to Miltenberger. The trip was
Shipley’s 12th.
“There’s the fishing, but there’s the
appeal of being away from cell phone
service, from the day-to-day routine
and from the problems that come up,”
Shipley said of the Alaskan experience.
“You can concentrate on friends, fish-
ing and relaxing. It renews your soul,
your spirit. You can call it a week of
therapy.”
Even before making the return trip
home to the ranch, Miltenberger said he
would be going to Alaska again to fish.
“It was worth every penny and every
minute I took off to go do it,” the rancher
said.
“My advice to those guys who keep
putting something like this off is to go do
it because eventually you may not be able
to,” he said.
After a long day of travel by boat,
plane and pickup, Miltenberger arrived
back at his ranch at about midnight. He
was back on a tractor at daybreak.
Calendar
Harvest Fest, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.,
Yamhill Valley Heritage Center
Museum, McMinnville, Ore. Fea-
tured will be a tractor parade and
threshing, binding and baling oats
person; $20 per family.
egon Convention Center, Portland.
Saturday, Aug. 22
Thursday-Saturday
Aug. 27-29
Thursday-Friday
Sept. 17-18
p.m., Howell Territorial Park,
Sauvie Island, Ore. Cost: $15 per
p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Friday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Or-
using antique farming equipment
and horses. Cost: Adults $5, kids
under 12 free.
Rural Living Field Day, 8: 30 a.m.-2
Idaho
Carol Ryan Dumas .......... 208-860-3898
Epps is a wildlife biologist and an assistant professor in OSU’s
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
Ken Miltenberger, right, a Bend, Ore., area cattle and hay rancher, and Larry Shipley
of Roseburg, Ore., pose for a photo with a 127-pound halibut their fishing party caught
during a trip to Coffman Cove, Alaska. Miltenberger had to do some planning and early
planting in order to get his first cutting of hay in the barn before leaving on the trip.
Saturday-Sunday
Aug. 15-16
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E Idaho
John O’Connell ................. 208-421-4347
Personal: 44, two daughters, Lillie and Susannah. Husband Clint
For the Capital Press
make done.”
While he was gone, Tom Miller, a
neighboring rancher, did some irrigating
on Miltenberger’s fields and looked after
his cattle.
To Reach Us
N. California
Tim Hearden .................... 530-605-3072
Extension Service food systems
specialist, Oregon State University.
Associate director of OSU’s Center
for Small Farms and Community
Food Systems.
By CRAIG REED
COFFMAN COVE, Alaska —
Making a fishing trip to Alaska didn’t
come without some major planning by
Ken Miltenberger.
The Bend, Oregon, area cattle
rancher, hay grower and hay hauler
started planning for his 10-day bucket
list fishing vacation after being invited
to join a fishing group three years ago.
Saving a few dollars was one matter,
but scheduling the planting, cutting and
hauling of his first cutting of hay was
most important. And he had to have
somebody look after his livestock.
It all came together and worked out
for Miltenberger, who in early July
drove away from the ranch he had
grown up on and now works. After a
flight from Portland to Seattle and then
to Wrangell, Alaska, the fishing party
he was a member of took a 60-minute
boat ride and finished their trip at Coff-
man Cove on Prince of Wales Island.
For the next six days, Miltenberger
and his fishing friends enjoyed reeling
in halibut, silver salmon, Pacific cod
and a few rock fish.
“Going on a fishing trip like this is
something I wanted to do all my life,”
said the 64-year-old rancher.
Miltenberger was invited to join the
group on its annual trip to Coffman
Cove three years ago, but needed a cou-
ple of years to save and plan.
“This year, I just said I’m going to
go,” he said. “It took quite a lot of plan-
ning and quite a bit of luck.”
The planning included planting his
fields early, getting his first cutting com-
pleted in June and having a field of oats
ready for cutting after his return from
Alaska.
“Luck was with us,” Miltenberger
said. “We had good weather and no ma-
jor breakdowns. It seems every time you
want to do something like this, the baler
blows up or the tractor blows up. This
year everything came together so well.
We finished the first cutting by working
from can-see to can’t-see. We got all the
hay put up and the deliveries I had to
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Position: Assistant professor and
Alaska fishing trip a welcome break for rancher
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By ERIC MORTENSON
CORVALLIS, Ore. —
The way Lauren Gwin sees
it, helping small farmers
and processors thrive is
right in Oregon State Uni-
versity’s sweet spot as a
land-grant university. It’s
all about collaboration,
sharing information and
wading through the regula-
tory thicket.
A successful local food
system, she says, bridges
the gap between farmers
and community nutrition
and public health in a way
that producers don’t get
caught in the “price-point
conundrum.” Meaning they
can make a living while
providing people access
to an affordable, healthful
diet.
It’s a complicated chal-
lenge, but it has become
part of the College of Ag-
ricultural Sciences’ mission
at OSU. Gwin is associate
director of the college’s
Center for Small Farms and
Community Food Systems.
She and center Director
Garry Stephenson head up
a program that helps begin-
ners and small-scale pro-
ducers learn how to raise
crops, operate machinery,
find markets, improve soil,
understand regulations and
many other lessons.
Meanwhile, Gwin has
emerged as one of the coun-
try’s go-to experts in small-
scale meat processing. She
co-founded the national
Niche Meat Processor Net-
work, an online service that
allows small processors to
pose questions, offer sug-
gestions, figure out the rules
Capital Press
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Annual Meeting and Conference, 8
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Index
California ...............................11
Dairy .................................... 14
Idaho ...................................... 9
Livestock ............................. 14
Markets ............................... 16
Opinion .................................. 6
Oregon ................................ 10
Washington ........................... 8
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