Food Distributions to fight Hunger and Food Insecurity

In 2023 we’ve received support from the Oregon Food Bank to provide around 1/3 to 1/2 of what we produce to Western Farm Worker’s Association’s food distribution in Hillsboro and to Comida KIN’s free meals program. This is our first year of expanding our social justice imperative to the distribution side of our operation. It’s a perfect fit to our collaborative, educational production model for the food we produce to go to communities facing hunger and food insecurity, many of whom are farmworker families in the area working for large corporate farms.

CAMPO Collective

Internship

Our primary program right now is our collective no-till/permaculture farm on 3 acres of Stoneboat Farm. This project grew from 2020’s internship wherein our focus shifted from studying the sustainable tactics already practiced on Stoneboat toward a vision of regenerative agricultural practices like no tilling and permaculture. By combining our knowledges we realized we had the potential to create something new and take big steps towards agroecology, a movement we all believe in. 2020’s interns Jade Novarino and Margarita Reyes are joined by farmer and CAMPO founder Jesse Nichols in a project which so far has established 125 permanent beds for no till vegetables and inoculated them with beneficial microbes and fungal spores. We’re practicing intercropping, applying the permaculture concept of layering to annual vegetables to maximize photosynthetic potential and row space while out competing weeds and taking advantage of plant symbiosis. We’ve also drawn on Jade and Margarita’s experiences to develop a permaculture inspired fruit tree and perennial hedge row and a large section of strawberries and blueberries. The combination of perennials and annuals provides space and opportunity for native insect populations to thrive and keep down our pest pressure through natural ecological systems. Already in our first year we’re producing most of the farm’s restaurant crops in the new permanent beds. Within three years we plan to transition this portion of the farm to a cooperative structure, as agroecology is also about more democratic forms of land and resource ownership and management.

Our internship program provides the only on-farm internship in sustainable agriculture for native Spanish speaking beginning farmers in the Portland, Oregon region. Topics from pest management to crop storage are taught in Spanish, through hands on experience. Interns get a solid foundation of agricultural know-how with which to begin their own farming ventures or attain a management position at an organic or sustainable farm. The internship is CAMPO’s base-building, flagship program. As we grow in numbers, our power as agents of agricultural change grows as well, from the ground up. CAMPO doesn’t just teach agricultural skills, it provides a space and a platform to rethink our relationships with the land and agriculture. This 2022 season, Zeferina Rodriguez Luna and long time collaborator and friend of CAMPO Uriel De Leon, join us as interns.

Escuela Helvetia

CAMPO's initial educational program is a collaborative effort with the University of Oregon. The accredited language program offers immersion in the Spanish language and agricultural practice. It is essentially an “abroad” program just 20 minutes outside of Portland. Students are paired with homestay families in Spanish speaking Hillsboro, Beaverton and Cornelius neighborhoods while they complete a two week immersion in Spanish and agriculture program on Stoneboat Farm. Apart from the basics of organic agriculture, students learn the agricultural history of the Mexican and Central American population of this region by directly working and sharing life experiences with both interns on the farm and homestay families. We also collaborate with local nonprofits in the Latino community to offer students other opportunities to interact with the Latino community west of Portland while they’re here. It is a term of study based entirely on hands on experience and learning through community involvement. University students, like CAMPO interns, are potential agents of agricultural change. Our 2020 and 2021 programs were cancelled by pandemic concerns but our 2022 program will be even better as our collective no-till/permaculture project will be an excellent living classroom and we’ll have more experience hosting free classes and events which will build the educational infrastructure and method.