Deck Family Farm
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Christa Hein: Hey there, welcome to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former nonprofit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals, and the traditions that nourish our daily lives.
If you're listening, you probably believe what I do, that farm education is needed now more than ever. Not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities, and everywhere in between. In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country, people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways.
Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education - you're in the right place. [00:01:00] Let's dig in.
Christa Hein: Hi, welcome back to the Farm Educator's Roadmap. Today, I'm talking with Christine Deck, co-founder of Deck Family Farm in Junction City, Oregon. Deck Family Farm is a diversified regenerative livestock farm raising everything from beef and pork to dairy, eggs, and vegetables. All sold through their CSA, farmer's markets, and direct relationships with their community.
Christine and her husband are training the next generation of farmers within that working farm through immersive internships and apprenticeships that go far beyond just learning how to care for animals. I'm excited to dive into what that actually looks like day to day. Christine, thanks so much for joining me.
Christine Deck: Thank you for having me.
Christa Hein: Yeah, absolutely. So, to start, I'd love to go back before Deck Family Farm even existed and just understand your path into farming. [00:02:00] You and your husband both had early exposure to farming in different ways. Can you take us back to what first drew each of you towards agriculture?
Christine Deck: Well, I'll start with my husband. He grew up a second-generation immigrant from Italy. And the story I've heard him tell is that he saw the farmland in the Santa Clara Valley, which is now known as Silicon Valley, just get swallowed up by urban development and business.
And so, he heard stories from his grandfather and uncles about what prune farming was like, or all the orchards that they owned and ran, and just saw it disappear in his lifetime. So, he was called to farming. And I think that's part of his choice to go to UC Davis, which was an ag college, known for agriculture. And that's where I was. That's where we met.
I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California and also to a farming family. And my family's farming is as far back as I know. And that lineage of making money while farming ended with my grandparents [00:03:00] at the time of the, it was something like get big or get out of agriculture. And that's when both sides lost their ability to make a living farming. They were too small. They didn't get big. They got out. So, my parents then grew up in that legacy where their parents worked, but the farming blood never left, like they couldn't stop farming. So, they continued to farm, but what would've, 50 years previously been a profitable small farm, became just a hobby farm.
So, I grew up in that legacy. My parents also farmed, and my parents also had other work outside the farm to support the farm, in a way. And I grew up just thinking, man, if I want to farm ethically and with a humanitarian focus, I better have a really good job. And now looking back, that just sounds bad.
I understand why I thought it, but that our farm kids are brought up to think if we want to farm in an ethical way that's not extractive, we better have a good job, that's the opposite of what I would like to see. And that's a root of my endeavor to train the next generation of farmers.
We not only need to know the skills to farm, but we need to know the books behind it. And [00:04:00] we have to know the marketing so that people understand the story, so they'll pay for the practice, because you're not just buying a product, you're buying a practice when you buy from a farm like ours.
Christa Hein: Yeah, absolutely.
Christine Deck: So my husband and I met, we went to school at UC Davis, and I lived in the feedlot, he lived in the beef barn. And my job was to feed chicken poop to cows because there was an experiment to see would cows grow on chicken poop. Which only just cemented my desire to not be in that commercial cattle industry.
And then we just continued in UC Davis, the Bay Area, finishing our education. We grew a family of five in that area, and when we finally were done educating and wanted to move and start a farm, which we were both pretty positive that we wanted to do, we were priced out of California.
There was nothing we could afford for what we had, and so we looked north to Oregon where there was some farmland that was still affordable. And we had, in our young years, were able to buy a condo in Santa Cruz, and we ended up selling that condo at a good time. We bought it when prices were low, and we sold them when prices were high. And we were able to get our foot in the door of some farmland. And [00:05:00] that's how we started here at Deck Family Farm 22 years ago.
Christa Hein: So, when you first started that farm, what was your vision for the farm at that point?
Christine Deck: When we purchased the farm, it was a working livestock farm, and we purchased a herd of 40 Hereford moms. And so that's how we started, we just started very small scale. My expertise is in livestock. I was an animal science major. That's what I knew. And at the time, 22 years ago, there weren't a lot of ethical livestock producers, and it seemed like the market was very open to organic, ethically raised livestock. So, there was a lot of support from the community in that way.
So, it began organically. I don't think we just said, "We're going to have this livestock farm. That's what it's going to be." It just began with what I knew, what I had already known, and what it looked like the market wanted. So, we slowly, over the course of the next five years, grew our flocks and herds of chickens, and pork, and beef.
And then eventually got a dairy. And the dairy for me is a big deal because my parents were [00:06:00] both kids of dairy farmers and would say, "We'll never have a dairy. Dairies don't take vacations." Blah. But as many kids do, you want to do it better than your parents. So, to me that's a pretty big deal, and I'm pretty passionate about the dairy and milking cows.
Christa Hein: So, your farm has obviously grown a lot since you first started. Can you paint us a picture of what all you do today, what you're raising, and how all the pieces fit together?
Christine Deck: So, Deck Family Farm, we finish about 60 to 70 beef per year. 5,000 to 6,000 meat birds, what people call broilers in the industry, we call them roasters. Deck Family Farm has four flocks of layers of about 900 each. So, we're producing about 11 to 14 cases of eggs a day. The dairy is comprised of about 40 individuals, both milking and dry and gestating. The flock of sheep runs at about 100 ewes, so about 200 to 220 lamb per year. And pork, we finish about 500 to 600 pork [00:07:00] per year.
So yeah, so all that started from nothing, basically. Well, a herd of 40 Hereford moms, which now we don't raise Herefords, we raise Galloways, which are a heritage breed.
Christa Hein: So, a pretty diversified farm there. And I see that you sell through a full farm CSA, farmers markets, and direct-to-consumer channels. Can you explain what a full farm CSA is, how it works, and what makes it different from a typical one?
Christine Deck: Yeah. So, the Full Farm CSA model was started by my daughter and I about seven years ago. And we based it on a farm in New York called Essex Farm, you may have heard of it. When they first started their farm, people just paid for what they could afford. So, they just paid money, and then they got whatever they wanted, the suite of products of veg, and fruit, and meat.
And when we first started vending meat, it was through a CSA. We did subscription model only. And people were really happy about that when we started. So, people could buy halves and [00:08:00] wholes, and then we piled a bunch of meats in a box, and we sold them by box, and it was subscription.
And then when we started going to the farmers market a couple years later, we started the CSA model there where people, they paid money into a fund, and then when they came to the farmers market, they could get whatever they wanted, and we would credit their fund. It was pretty popular.
Like I said, there weren't a lot of people raising ethical meat at the time. And so, what ended up happening is, we started at one farmers market, then we extended to two more farmers markets, and pretty soon we were at four farmers markets. And the model was so popular that when we came home, we just spent hours and hours, like, I think my husband and I spent from two to five hours every farmers market weekend just entering the sales that people made on this model. And so, it became a little unyielding. At the time we didn't have the technical chops to try to make it more digital. Now there's actually all kinds of ways to do it, and Local Line is one of them, which is how we vend our full farm CSA currently.
So if you fast forward ahead seven years [00:09:00] later, in the current iteration, we developed it a little bit on this idea that people should just pay what they want and get what they want. Like it felt very fair, like food equity-wise. And then with that, we developed an online store where people could go online, see the product they want, shop, put it in their cart, and then check out. And this is also based on subscription. So, people paid so much per month, they put what they wanted in their cart, and then we would deliver it to either a drop site or a farmers market.
And that's the model we're still operating on today, although now instead of our own website, we use a shopping... I think it's based off the Shopify platform, and it's called Local Line. And so, we have a large suite of products. All the protein comes from our farm. The dairy, the meat, the eggs come from our farm. A lot of the vegetables comes from our farm, but we also source hyper-local from other farms close by. Nothing from too far away. Everything's within 60 -90 miles because we also service Portland. So, we try to just have a very broad suite of products that are grown hyper-locally, and that's the full farm [00:10:00] CSA.
So, our biggest income streams are, really there's four income streams, but three of the biggest are farmer's markets, the full farm CSA, and then we have a large wholesale account for the pork through Whole Foods Market and another local market called Market of Choice. It's a larger chain. So those are our three biggest income streams. And then farm sales are people who just approach us through the internet or walk up on farm. That's a very small percent of what we do, and then we do a little bit of shipping, but not much.
Christa Hein: So, I want to ask about the way that you're farming. So, your farm is rooted in regenerative pasture-based systems. What does that actually look like in your day-to-day decisions?
Christine Deck: Well, we're putting a lot of nutrient back on the pasture. Not only do we intensively graze through the grazing season, which is April through November, weather permitting, so, every day, even in late August we're irrigating and moving animals. Of course, there's a period of time where we have to set stock, but day to day it involves daily moving of animals, which is very labor intensive. And we do that with hotline. So that's one [00:11:00] way.
And we compost all the manure that we've saved from over the winter, and we reapply that to the soil. We do regular soil sampling to know what we're deficient in and what we need to add. So those are our primary day-to-day interactions. And we're just always trying to plant a diversity of forages. A regular pasture mix might take five or six different seeds. We're planting 15 to 20 different seeds. So, we're trying to diversify in that as well.
And then trying to minimize inputs because the animals are eating a lot of grass. Chickens are only going to eat a certain percent, right? Like, maybe up to 20% of their intake is going to be for a more heritage breed like a ranger. But mostly it's grain. So, we are inputting grain that's questionably regenerative. Although we do try to buy from local growers.
Christa Hein: So, at some point then, you moved from farming to also teaching, and it sounds like that also grew really organically. Can you tell me about how you first started bringing people onto the farm to learn?
Christine Deck: So, as I mentioned early in the interview, [00:12:00] farming has just been near and dear to my heart. It's a passion, and I think it's key to food sovereignty and freedom. True freedom is the ability to feed yourself. I think it's really important.
I grew up in the age of NAFTA when we started exporting cheap grains to Mexico and importing factories where they could work instead of farming. And seeing the effect of that economic, and that's hard to watch. And I saw a lot of people like my family lose their ability to farm just based on this big industrial model. So, it's super key to me that people know how to feed themselves. That's a passion. And if I leave this world knowing that I've educated a few more people to feed themselves, I will have considered it a win.
My husband and I had five kids, and they all contributed on the farm. They're all hard workers. They're all passionate people. I'm not sure that they're passionate about farming, unfortunately. We may have missed the mark there. [Laughter] The jury's still out. Not everybody's fully into their own careers, but we'll see.
So, when our kids started leaving the farm, so to speak, to explore other things, one of [00:13:00] the things they explored was WWOOF. And WWOOF stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. And it's a way for young people to travel around and see how other people are doing things. It's like Workaway is a similar program, but not farm-focused, but WWOOF is farm-focused.
So, when they started leaving the farm…it was just my husband and I and our five kids for the longest time. We took care of the livestock all week long, and then worked the farmers markets on the weekend, and then got up and did it again. And truly that's not a sustainable lifestyle. And in addition, we were sending them to Waldorf schools where we were driving into the closest largest city so that they could sing songs about farming and planting. It's a little ironic. So, some things I'd do different in the future. But anyway, that's the way we chose to do it.
So, our kids grew up in a culture of, I don't know, indulgence sounds harsh, but certainly not farm kid culture where you just stay home and work on the farm. It was more of I want to go to the concerts, and I want to go to these things, and I want to do all these things, and that's the culture they grew up in. And we supported that.
All that aside, the point is most young [00:14:00] people want to get up and go explore, and that's what they did. They WWOOFed.
So that introduced us to the concept of WWOOF. And so, we started inviting some WWOOFers to the farm, which served a few purposes. One, it resupplied a labor force that was there, and it introduced a culture to our farm that farming's cool. There's people who actually want to do it, and they'll travel to your farm, and they'll come and stay just to do it. So that was a positive for sure.
What was true though, and still is, is that volunteers don't run a business. You cannot run a business, any kind of business, off of volunteer labor. No matter how international they are, excited, or passionate, it's volunteer labor. If you want to run a business, you need to pay people to run the business.
And so, we started hiring employees. It was clear that you can't replace your kids' labor with volunteers. Even though that cultural aspect was still a plus. So, then we started expanding. And you know, as any small business owner knows, it's hard to know where to toggle. Like, how do you have the money to hire? But then if you don't hire, you don't have the money to actually run. So, there was a lot of straddling that happened [00:15:00] during that time, but we were able to start hiring people.
And then with that, we were able to develop more of an education program because we ended up having people who really are good at what they do. Like our farm manager is super solid, knows a lot about grazing, knows a lot about pigs. And John and I also came with a lot of this knowledge, too, and learned just by on the ground. But we started realizing that we had a lot of things to share with people, and if we could get people to stay and pay attention for a period of time, they could really walk away with some skills to run their own farm.
So, we developed a year-long program, minimum, where people could rotate through the different enterprises and just learn how to run those enterprises. And that's everything from the animal care, feeding, water care, shelter, to the books behind it, to the numbers behind it. How many animals do you need to produce this product? How much do you need to charge for that product to be able to pay for the enterprise plus pay yourself? So, we started running it a lot more like a business and then teaching that to students ended up just being a really [00:16:00] good fit.
So, the year-long program comes with a stipend. So, it's a really great program, and we still have this culture of farming, which I've noticed a lot of people who are farming really feel a lot of isolation. And I think, thankfully, we don't have that kind of isolation, because we have 30 employees, we have 8 to 12 students, we have four families just living on the farm. And I think that feeling of farming in isolation is not as present here as it could be in other farms.
And to me, that's really key because I'm not an isolated person. I'm a very social person. I really enjoy big dinners and lots of people and lots of interaction. And I do not enjoy working so hard that I can't get up the next day. Like, well, I'm 62, so I'm limited in what I can do now. But that lifestyle that we were holding before, I see a lot of young farmers trying to hold that, and it just doesn't look like they're going to last. I think you've got to build a lifestyle that works or you won't do it.
Christa Hein: So, I wanted to ask, you mentioned that the interns rotate through different enterprises. How do you decide what each person needs to [00:17:00] learn?
Christine Deck: It's a great question. And it's very organic and based on what the farm needs and what the student needs. So, the student comes with a set of interests, and the farm has a set of needs, and we work to match that. And we say, "Okay, if we can't fulfill your interest in the first three to four months, then we're going to do it in the next three to four months. And if we can't do all that in a year, then you're going to stay a little longer to get what you want."
So, it's a little bit like a college course in a way. There's a curriculum, you're in this enterprise, you're going to take this test, you're going to learn the financials. It's pretty, I wouldn't say regimented, but it's structured for sure. It's not just go do chores and we'll see you at the end of three months. They're definitely learning the entire enterprise from beginning to end, and that includes marketing. So, all students have to spend some time at farmers markets or in our full farm CSA learning that aspect of it. So, it works out.
I'm happy to say that over 90% of the time everybody gets what they want. And in the end, as any profitable business, everything has a financial consideration. So, we're going to be flexible and we're [00:18:00] going to try to accommodate a student's need, but we're not going to accommodate to the point that it doesn't make financial sense. It has to make sense for the farm, and if the farm isn't here, then this program wouldn't be here, and the products wouldn't be here. And ultimately, at the end of the day, it's about paying your bills. But that's also a huge part of farming that people need to understand.
Christa Hein: Absolutely. So, another layer is that people aren't just working on the farm, they're also living there, too. What does it add to the experience when people are living on the farm and sharing daily life together?
Christine Deck: Oh my gosh, yeah. So, your question is like living on the farm, how does that enhance the educational experience? Hugely, because animals get out at midnight sometimes. [Laughter] We try not to, but there's a huge culture. The amount of learning that happens over the dinner table is big. Yeah, I think being in an immersed culture like this, because this isn't just a job, this isn't just a place of work, this is an experience. It's a fully immersive program.
So yeah, dinnertime conversation, just being [00:19:00] there for emergencies. We open and close every day, so you have to be here at dawn and dusk. You know, it's cool to live on a farm, right? I mean, it's awesome. You don't have to commute, and you get to hear the chickens in the morning, and the cows.
And just, even if you're not, say, in the dairy enterprise, you see the dairy cows walking up. Or say you're not in chickens this week or this month or this rotation, but you still see the eggs being washed, or you could still be part of egg washing. Or you're maybe not in marketing right now, but you certainly see all the products going out, and you hear in the morning circle what the feedback was from the farmers market. So just being here so much, it's immersive.
Christa Hein: So, you've been doing this for a while, and I'm sure you start to see what happens after people leave. What does success look like for you when someone completes the program?
Christine Deck: Oh my gosh, when they're in some version of the agricultural industry, I have countless, not countless, but I have many stories I could tell of people just running their own farms. Just going back home and either taking on their family's land, or not even owning land at all, [00:20:00] just understanding that you can be a sheep grazer and graze under solar panels and not have to own anything. Or manage a farm.
Or we have one student that's part of an extension now in Wisconsin. He's part of the agriculture extension. We have another student who-- This is a success story. Even though he didn't go into farming, he owns his own coffee business. I think he would say this, too, that his ability to run this business is directly related to the experience he had. Even though he's not doing agriculture, he learned how to run a business.
So yeah, just people who leave, it makes me feel like we made a big difference. And some people go back to school. They get their higher degree in something sustainable agriculture or environmental science. Or just if we can light a fire and even help people understand just more about what it takes to produce food, that's a win.
Christa Hein: Absolutely. So, I know this work continues to evolve for you. You mentioned you're a mother of five and that your own family was deeply connected to the farm as you raised them. How do you think raising children around farming shaped the way that you think [00:21:00] about the education program that you run?
Christine Deck: Yeah, hugely, for sure. I feel like I can relate to younger people and just the conversations, the realities of what they're facing in life. I relate specifically to this group of people because they're passionate about agriculture. Anybody who's passionate about what I want to teach, I'm going to relate to.
Just boundaries, countless ways, right? Being a mom helps you countless ways. When I'm going to hire somebody, if they're a mom, I already just give them 50 more points. So, I know by raising a few kids, you learn so much about limits, boundaries, explanations, forgiveness, protocols. Just there's a lot you learn by being a mom. Being a mom has always been my number one focus in my life, honestly.
I grew up in California in the '60s, right? I grew up in a very hippie culture. So, I was not brought up in a culture to believe that being a woman, being a mom, liking to home make, liking all those things was a positive. I grew up thinking those were all like, "Oh, that's what people who can't figure out what they're going to do." So, my life [00:22:00] pivoted with my first child. I was like, "Whoa, I like being a mom. I want to be here for this person. I want to keep the house clean. It was a real genesis. Like the way sometimes people talk about being born again, I think was my experience of motherhood. My experience of being a mom has informed everything.
Christa Hein: Yeah. So, as you've grown your farm, you've grown the business, I'm sure that growth is just a natural part of who you are. So, I'm just curious, what are you dreaming about next? Are there any educational experiences or things that you're hoping to add to your farm?
Christine Deck: Absolutely. So, for our education program, we're going to turn it into a nonprofit because first of all, it literally is a nonprofit. I mean, it does give you a scope of our program.
We expect the students to leave for at least a week to experience another farm experience during their first year here. We expect them to take on some sort of project, personal project that they want to do. One of our biggest projects was building a cobb house. All the way down to just tanning a sheepskin.
So, [00:23:00] we actively push people to do their own projects. We want them to do midterm reports. I mean, there's so much educational effort that we expect our students to do, plus putting a stipend on top of it. So, we're putting the student program into a nonprofit. That's one thing we're doing.
And then I think, this is new, but we're going to try to run a kindergarten through high school actual school, a farm school. Which is really what I wish that had been there, that I had just given my own kids. I wouldn't have to send them anywhere. We could have just done it. But now I have grandkids and, yeah, I just see that there's a need for that. And to teach kids practical everyday skills on a farm seems like that would be huge. So, we're just beginning the exploration of that second endeavor.
The third endeavor, and I should have said this is my first endeavor, is I'm going to start milking my cows when I stop running this business. I'm going to milk more because I don't get to milk enough. And the way that we're doing that is that we're putting the actual land of the farm into a trust, into a farm trust, and [00:24:00] so we will still retain ownership of that. That's our way of inheriting land to the kids. But the farm itself will be owned, the businesses will be owned by the individual operators. So, they can run it here, they can run it elsewhere, but we'll have a joint marketing front. And they will have an opportunity to produce on this land and sell through a joint marketing front.
And then John and I, again, I'll say, we're nearing the end here, 10 years out probably, will just be here as support. We'll still own the land and lease, but it'll be farming focused. And we're doing that through a government organization called Farmland Trust, that allows you to put your land in a trust so it can't be used any other way.
Christa Hein: That's awesome. I always like to wrap up the interview by asking for advice. So, for somebody who is listening who has a farm or thinking about adding internships or apprenticeships, what's one thing you'd want them to really think about before they begin?
Christine Deck: Honestly, there's two things I would say are really key. Maybe three. Let me start with the third [00:25:00] that's positive, is it will bring a nice culture to the farm. A breath of fresh air of people who are really excited about what you're doing.
But then the other two pieces are you must know your numbers no matter what you're doing, and especially with an education program, because they can end up costing you more than you might believe. And don't believe, the third piece, for a minute that it's free labor, because it's not. The amount of time that you spend training, fixing things that are broken, replacing that person, because they have to move on eventually, it's an endeavor.
And if you don't love it, if you're not passionate about it, just don't do it. Don't do it because you think you get free labor. That's because it's not what it is. Yeah. Do it because you're passionate, you want to teach, you want to send these skills down… and know your numbers. And be ready for fun, young energy that's great. It's really nice to have around.
Christa Hein: So, to wrap up, how can people find you online, learn more about Deck Family Farm, and explore your internship program?
Christine Deck: Oh, yeah. So, we're online at deckfamilyfarm.com. [00:26:00] We advertise our program through Handshake, which is advertised through colleges. We try to target agricultural colleges, although people don't have to have an agricultural background. And then ATTRA, which is NCAT, the National Center for Appropriate Technology is a place where we post our internship.
We still advertise on WWOOF. We're very selective on who we take on WWOOF. Only occasionally do we take people. So ATTRA, WWOOF, Handshake and our website. Yeah, there's information on our website about the program.
Christa Hein: Well, Christine, I just love how deeply education is woven into the work of your farm through the way you're training future farmers. That it's not theoretical, it's something they're living and doing as part of the farm every day. Thank you so much for sharing your story and the work you're doing to help train the next generation of farmers.
Christine Deck: Thanks, Christa. It was great talking to you. Thanks for your interest in what we're [00:27:00] doing.
Christa Hein: Absolutely. To our listeners, if this episode gave you something to think about, I would love for you to follow the podcast, leave a review, and share this with someone who’s dreaming about this kind of work. Until next time, keep teaching, keep growing, and keep connecting people to the land.
Christa Hein: Hey farm educators, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you. If you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book, grab my free guide, five Simple Steps to Growing an In Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I used to grow my own farm education business.
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