Farm Walks S5 Ep3 Wilridge Winery/Naches Heights Vineyards + Ben Bowell

This is the Farm Walks Podcast, brought to you by Tilth Alliance and the Washington State University Food Systems Program. I'm your host, Keith Bacon. Following in the footsteps of Farmer Nicole and everyone on the team who first brought this production to life, the Farm Walks Podcast came about when in-person farm walks were put on hold during the pandemic. Those on-site visits for farmer-to-farmer education are now back in action, and you can learn more about them at our website farmwalks.org. For this new season of the podcast, we're switching things up and recording every interview in the field or in the barn or wherever I can get a moment with our very busy, hardworking guests. In this episode, we'll hear firsthand how eco-conscious efforts and practices are growing like a vine in the Washington winemaking world and how the Transition to Organic Partnership Program is helping to establish pioneering advances in organic winemaking. And we'll make a provider connection at the Tilth Conference and Farm and Food Symposium with Ben Boll, Education and Advocacy Director at Oregon Tilth. But first, let's head out to Yakima for a deep dive into organic wines.

I'm Abraham Gonzalez. And I farm grapes. I'm a manager for Naches Heights Vineyard for 20 years, so pretty much planted all the grapes around the area.

I'm Paul Beveridge. I'm the winemaker and distiller at Willridge Vineyard Winery and Distillery on Naches Heights near Yakima.

And we are here at Willridge Winery and Distillery for this interview. Thanks for hosting us here today. Paul, can you just give us a general overview of what your operation is like up here?

Yeah. So Willridge, we started in Seattle in 1988. We're actually the oldest winery in Seattle. And for a long time we bought our grapes from around the state from some of the, the best vineyards in the state. And every winemaker's dream is to have their own vineyard where they have total creative control, get to pick what grapes are grown, how they're grown, and that sort of thing. 18 years ago, I quit my day job, found Abraham and his boss Phil. And planted this place. So we've been up here on Nancy's Heights now for almost 20 years.

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much what I have. Farmed grapes, but again, I'm a farmer for all my life.

Are you a multi-generation farming family, or?

Yes, my father came here in 1956, and then my old brothers farmed around, and I stay in the business.

Did your family do apples in Mexico?

No. Okay. We started here and started farming here. Farming here, yes.

Paul Willridge is Washington's first certified organic winery, is that correct?

Okay, we are the first certified organic and biodynamic winery.

Okay.

And vineyard in Washington State. And if you throw the distillery in, we're the first of all.

Okay.

So yeah, first organic vineyard winery and distillery in the state. We did our conversion in 2007 when we planted the vineyard here.

And what motivated you to go that route?

For me, it was just obvious that we'd be organic. I was an environmental lawyer in my prior life. First 20 years I moonlit with a day job at a big law firm in Seattle.

Uh-huh.

So, so when I left the law firm, I planted the vineyard and as an environmental lawyer, I'm gonna be organic from that perspective. Then I had two young boys who were gonna be out here playing in the vineyard. And as you saw this morning from seeing the vineyard, you know, the winery, the tasting room are right there amongst the grapes.

Yeah.

And we got the picnic area right there amongst the grapes and we don't wanna be spraying any nasty stuff.

Yeah.

And we have the hiking down to the Cowichee Canyon Conservancy south of our vineyard. So people are always walking through the vineyard too. We don't wanna have any operations that are gonna be trouble for the public.

People are literally drinking, eating, and sleeping here. So it's nice to have a clean environment to do all those things.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing is, is that grapes are pretty easy to grow organically, particularly out here when you've got all the natural advantages that Washington State has. Why not?

In your opinion, what are the benefits of choosing organic certification as opposed to just practicing organic?

I get asked that question a lot. Well, I do it because there are a few guys here in Washington and many more in Oregon and California that practice organics, practice biodynamics, but don't go through the trouble of getting certified. And there's a number of reasons to do it. I think one is it keeps everybody honest. You really do have to keep the records, right? You don't just have to do the practices.

Abraham even showed up with some records today, right?

Yeah, he's got 5 years of our records.

Receipts.

And what's great about this pile of our spray records is how short it is. Yes, a whole year of what we spray goes on one page.

So you're using less paper too, at the same time.

Yeah, fewer chemicals, fewer paper. In addition to being kept honest, the certification is wonderful in the marketplace. It's the reason we get into Whole Foods and the BCC co-ops in Seattle, or Nature's down in Oregon, is because we're certified. And when we go to export, there's over 1,000 wineries in Washington State, right? We're not gonna sell all our wine in Seattle, right? So we need to get out to other countries. And so the fact that the certifications work there, and then because our farm is organic, we've been able to get involved in a lot of programs to promote organic, some export programs. We get like grants for solar power and all. That's been a nice surprise benefit. And then finally, people love organic wine.

So the proof is in the pudding.

Yeah.

What prompted your journey to becoming a a mentor in the Transition to Organic Partnership Program, also known as TOP. What does being a mentor entail?

I grew up in a family of teachers. My mother was a teacher, my brother's a teacher, so I love teaching people about wine and what we're doing. And so if I got a chance to encourage more vineyards in the area and orchards to go organic, it's good for everybody. And then I get to buy more grapes that are certified organic from Abraham. So I've got a personal interest in Abraham transitioning, but we really want to encourage growers up and down the valley to do this because we really do have great conditions.

Yeah.

For organic in, in Washington.

Abraham, what role did this mentorship program play in the decision for the vineyards that you managed to become organic? How did this come about on your end?

Because I start to see we need to move it another direction for more sales to different wineries. Like mine, it's a live certification. Plus organic. I try to be organic. I spray organic, but I'm not certified organic. And again, I asked Paul if he buys some grapes for me, say, yeah, but you need to certify. If I need to go that direction, I go that direction. In the past, organic, I quit. I try to be again organic. So I hope it's the best decision I take.

So you've attempted this before, and then the mentorship program brought it back into the way that you're doing things.

Yes, I Spray organic for so many years, so why not? So I hope next year I'll be certified organic.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you've encountered in transitioning to organic?

Being too busy.

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, twice as much work, but in long run I can say it's a better decision. It's the best way to go organic. I know it's much more expenses. I know it's more time to work, but to be better in the market and the people eat better and drink better, why not, right?

We talked about the marketing benefit and how this puts you in a certain field, but what about the product or the fruit itself? Do you notice major differences transitioning to organic?

Absolutely. I forgot when you asked why we did it. One of the reasons was you look at the best wines in the world, are coming from organic vineyards.

Yeah.

And I was at a conference once years ago and they were showing a list of certified organic and biodynamic vineyards and wineries from around the world. And it was all the greatest wines in the world.

Wow.

And I went, I wanna be on that list. And so I originally got into this as well from my environmental background, from a quality standpoint. So when we started, that was also a big part of the decision is we wanted to have that quality fruit. It's also a sign that you care. You know, that you're paying attention, you're in there twice as much at least, and really seeing what the farm needs personally.

Yeah, and you talking about flavors, I'm farming apples again and pears for pretty much 50 years, so I testing so many apples. And the Galas that we have in here, finally it's a little better flavor. I don't know if it's because we spray organic or is combination between organic and biodynamic. But something different, some different flavor.

And do you get feedback from your customers on the things that you're growing? They're excited about going in this direction and finding it's a better product?

Yeah, some guys they do, but some guys they don't much pay attention.

I think we— it's in the wines too, not just the apples and pears, that you get an intensity of flavor. And we get a real varietally correct flavor that really the grape shows. You know, I'm really Cabernet Sauvignon, I'm really Sagrantino.

Yeah.

We can grow so many different varieties up here this way. The organic is definitely part of it. That's a lot of the stuff you don't do. And then with the biodynamics, there's these positive steps, the composting and returning everything to the vineyard that fit right in. And so all of that, plus our terroir, we say in the wine business.

Yes.

The sense of place. We're on Naches Heights, the geology, the plateau, the air drainage, all of that makes for really Quality wines.

We mentioned already that it definitely takes more work to do this process, but when you're able to do things like turn your grape leaves into grappa and stuff, does it kind of pencil out in a different way that you can make more money from more things? Or how does that translate to you?

That's a good question. That kind of a complicated answer.

Uh-huh.

For the grappa that we make from the waste grape pressings, there's still alcohol left over after you press off the wine. So we steam that alcohol off in our still and capture that. It's a product that's basically free. It's another value-added product that we're adding into our production stream, and it costs us nothing. So that's nice.

Yeah.

Compared to, say, when we do a bottle of our pear brandy, it takes a box of pears to make one bottle.

Wow.

But then you get the premium for being organic. There is an issue, I'll be frank, in organic wine is there is some organic wine out there of poor quality, and sometimes it's because it's made by hippies who don't wash their feet, you know, and And also there's a whole issue about whether to put sulfites in wine or not. And so sulfites are, it's sulfur, so it's allowed under organic and it gets sprayed for mildew in a lot of organic farms. But we try to keep it out of the wines, but we find if we don't use a tiny little bit, the wines don't last.

Interesting.

Yeah. So we have to do that. So unfortunately wine doesn't have as big an organic premium as it should, but we're changing that and TOP is helping. Change that to get the word out about how good it is. And it is more expensive to do. You would think I'm spraying less chemicals, I don't have to buy Roundup, that you would save money. But you do have to spend more time working with the plants, you know, to make sure they're not getting disease pressure, monitoring. Are we getting some mildew this year? Yeah. So a lot more work for the crew.

Yeah. We use natural ways to keep mildew away from plants. In the past, we don't do a leaf strip. Now we do it, uh-huh, just shooting in to open the vines and keep air movement. It's different way to farm it. It's a little bit more hard, but again, in long run, it's a lot of fun if you love what you do. If not, it's hard to do it. I really love what I do.

Abraham manages almost all the vineyards on Naches Heights.

Okay.

Because of his experience, he's been here from the beginning, and almost all of the vineyards on Naches Heights are already practicing organic. We got one exception that we're working on. Otherwise we'd be the first all-organic AVA, and as far as we know, in the United States.

Wow.

So that's a goal to get there. Abraham, he's run our place organically for 18 years now, and you can't argue with the results.

You mentioned there's one holdout right now, and I'm curious if your mentor partnership or your practices, do you feel like have they had a wider impact in the Yakima region or in other winemaking regions?

We're trying, we're presenting at the Washington Wine Grape Growers Conference, talking to the Washington Wine Commission about organic. They're very supportive as well. And Washington does have perfect conditions for growing organically, honestly and objectively the best in the world. And there's some places in Chile and Argentina that have similar conditions, so we'll give them props.

Spread the word to you.

And they, they even have soil like us.

Uh-huh.

We have the Cascade Mountains and they have the Andes. It's very similar. But the biggest thing is we don't get rain at harvest. So when you hear about a bad vintage in Bordeaux or Burgundy or Oregon, it's because it rained at harvest and came in and diluted the grapes and rot set in. And we're on irrigation here. Naches Heights would get 8 to 12 inches of precipitation a year, almost never in the summer, mostly snow in the winter. And I've had, let's see, 38 vintages in Washington State. And rain has only been a problem in one of them.

Wow.

It can rain.

Yeah.

Then you just wait a day, wind comes up, breeze blows through, you know, you're done. And then that also means we don't have to spray as much.

Yeah.

So for organic, they have to spray a lot in Burgundy to have an organic Pinot Noir or an organic Chardonnay with the weather conditions they have. And they're going in every 2 weeks and we don't. It's a few times a year here. If we have one Achilles heel when it comes to organic in Washington is if you can get water out here, it's an agricultural paradise. We're number one in apples, we're number one in pears, we're number one in hops, we're number one in mint, number one in potatoes. And I'm from Idaho. But all those crops can be done organically. And the other thing that loves organic is weeds. So we are like the weed capital of the world. That's, I think, the biggest thing that keeps more farmers in Eastern Washington is the amount of weeding we have to do. We're weed whacking our entire vineyard, what, every 6 weeks or so?

Yeah. Early in the spring, we spray once about April and one about June. And just about 2 weeks ago, we done with trimming again. That's the way that we control gophers and traps.

Okay.

So more clean you have it, less problem or less propagation in gophers.

Gotcha. And fewer chemicals but more manpower for this process, maybe.

Yeah, definitely. With the weeding, you can go more mechanized than we are. You can get different tillers and hoes and things. We try to be basically no-till here, and we tried all sorts of different techniques and then just good old-fashioned weed whackers.

And maybe there's a way to turn those weeds into some new organic gourmet seasoning blend or something like that.

Oh, we feed the marmots around here.

Yeah.

And they don't bother the grapes too much. But they're our little bioreactors. So they're taking all that grass and plants and flowers and turning it into poop and fertilizing the place for us.

Nice.

Yeah, it's a big part of biodynamics is having livestock. And our marmots are our livestock. We don't have a dairy cow, but we've got marmots.

That's amazing. I didn't know that marmots played that role up here.

Most farmers don't care for them. And if you put the wheel of your tractor in one of their holes, you might get a little might not find them so cute that day. Yeah, but they live off on the rocks and we have to protect the baby plants. But once they're up on the wire, they're out of their way and they sucker for us. They, they weed for us.

Wow.

Yeah, that's amazing. The secret weapon. And they're cute too. Are there other ways that the Yakima community supports each other with information or about what's working, what's not?

That's one of the great things about this industry, and I've been in it for a long time, back when there were 100 wineries instead of 1,000 in the state. But the camaraderie has always been great. The goal has always been to make the best possible wine. So we're not hiding secrets from each other, right? We're working together. What can we do to improve? What equipment can we share? And how can we raise the tide of quality for everybody? And WSU has helped a lot with that too, with all their programs, their ag science program and their grape service extension. We rely on them a ton. And then through the Grape Growers Association and some other associations, we have regular seminars. We have one we call boot camp where everybody brings their wines they're not happy with.

Oh.

And we all swear to secrecy.

Uh-huh.

And then we go over each other's wines and say, okay, here's what you need to do.

Oh, that's really interesting.

Yeah.

And you can do the same thing with organic.

Uh-huh.

Oh yeah. This is much better for getting rid of coddling moth than that is.

Yeah.

Uh, it definitely anything we can do to help each other.

Do you do that as a blind tasting or is it straight up this as my junk.

Oh no, it's blind. Okay. It's blind and mixed up. I always know what mine are though.

You want to own it, but not too much.

This episode of the Farm Walks podcast was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture Transition to Organic Partnership Program, partnering with nonprofit organizations to provide technical assistance and wraparound support for transitioning and existing organic farmers.

I want to ask both of you, what is it that drives you the most in what you do? What gets you up and back at it every day?

Oh, I've always loved wine and I love the lifestyle. And people say, Paul, where did you get all these great ideas for helping the Washington wine industry? And I go, I don't have a single original idea. I just look at what they do in Europe. Yeah, that works. And say, why aren't we doing that here? And most of the time it's because of government rules or big corporations. And so we need to smooth that out and make that easier on everybody.

For me, every day try different ways to farm it because all my life I still farm it, and I share some ideas with friends saying they told me another ways to do it, and we share ways how work for me or how I started in some practice that I make it a good result, and I try to keep moving the best way and share with friends. That's the challenge for every day.

Yeah, there's always something to do on a farm, right?

Yeah.

Abraham, when was the last time that you were bored and had nothing to do?

Oh man, I don't think even this morning I started to thinking what is the best way to We pruning some kind of grapes. There is a huge cluster itself.

What's grape?

I have Grenache Noir. Oh yeah, that's a Grenache Noir. It's a huge clusters and I start to make different ways and finally this year I saw leaving one bottom for a shoot is still a huge cluster but it's much better color and flavor. So again, every day I start to just keep changing. Yeah.

You've been doing this for so long, but you're still learning something all the time.

Every year I learn something.

Yeah. Every year. Well, that, that keeps it interesting.

I think I, I think I've made every mistake there is to make and I find some new ones.

That is another way to learn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I make a lot of mistake too. When I start planting grapes 20 years ago, I say, why not? We grow a lot of grapes, but But now I say, oh, it's not good to grow a lot of grapes. The good thing is keep the best quality, best wine. That's what I learned.

Quality over quantity.

Yes, that's what I wanted.

That is something unique about growing wine grapes. Almost all plants, all crops, you want to grow more and bigger.

Sure.

And with grapes, wine grapes, we want to make them suffer and we actually want a lower yield. So you're concentrating more flavor into those grapes and getting that higher quality. So it's, it's an irony. We have to baby our grapes and we also have to beat them.

Yeah.

Well, let me say, in the beginning I say, why not grow a lot of grapes? But now I just try to, versus 2 or 3 bottom for shoot, I start to do it one. And again, I start to see a really good quality and still Grapes is nice clusters, but quality is better. Flavor is right there.

Yeah.

And you don't need to spray as often.

Yes. Less is more, as I often like to say. Yes. In best or not so great situations. All right. Our next section is a fun little thing that we call barnstorming, where we run through, uh, some quick little decisions for you to make. Um, I'm just gonna name a couple of things and you just tell me which one you would choose, and you can talk about why a little bit, or you can just stand behind it. Some of these are gonna be easy. Some of them might be challenging for you. Uh, are you up for it?

Yeah, sure.

Okay. Okay. First one, red or white?

For me, red.

I love 'em both.

Yeah. You can't choose. That, that happens a lot when it's, you're in this space.

It's like chocolate and vanilla. You're gonna make me choose.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're choosing a child, a favorite child. That happens a lot. Foot crushed or machine crushed?

Oh, foot every time.

How about you, Abraham?

I, for me, just press. Yeah, a regular press machine.

You go with the machine?

Yes.

Yeah, get it done.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Paul wants to hang out and make a party out of it.

Again, I, I got certain time for my job and the whole year, so I need to make a decision.

Efficiency.

Yeah, we went a number of years, about 8 years in a row, we were 100% foot crushed.

Really?

But we're in Seattle, we had lots of volunteers. And now we always have one day where we do it by foot so we can say that we did. And it's a fun party.

Yeah, that sounds like a good time. Next one, one that you just mentioned, chocolate or cheese?

Oh, for me, it's cheese all the way. I like chocolate, but it doesn't like me.

Cheese.

Cheese.

All right.

Cheese and white wine.

Yeah.

Cheese and wine. It depends on the cheese and depends on the wine. And some people like red wine and chocolate. For me, I prefer brandy and chocolate or whiskey. Yeah, that's—

yeah, yeah. For me, I agree with whiskey.

Yes, I'm also here for whiskey.

Yeah.

Mondays or Fridays? This is an interesting one based on your unusual schedules up here.

For me, Mondays is the hard one. It's when I need to have everything ready for my crew for the whole week. So Monday is, is the day. Yeah.

Since I quit my day job 18 years ago, the day of the week doesn't matter.

Okay.

They're all the same. I wake up in the morning with more to do than I can possibly get done.

Yeah.

Do you ever forget what day it is?

Always. I can't remember at all. But I say that I'm either always working or I'm never working. I'm doing what I love to do. So I'm never working.

Yeah. That's great. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Dinner. Dinner. Because I love when I'm back to my house really starving and got a good dinner with a good glass of wine.

Nice.

I'm lunch. I love lunch. I love a big lunch with friends, and I love the siesta afterwards.

Excellent. Is there a catalog that you can't wait to see in your mailbox or email? Kind of like, is there like an industry magazine that you're like, oh, it's finally here?

There's a bunch. I can't remember the one right now, but it's, it's all mops and scrub brushes.

Okay.

It's a cleaning catalog. And I don't know why that one excites me so much.

It's like, it's here. Yeah.

For me, it's yearly. See the whole calendar for the telephone numbers.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Very handy.

Yeah.

The tool you couldn't live without.

We have a punch-down tool that we use in the winery. So as the red wine is fermenting, we're making alcohol and releasing carbon dioxide. The cap of grapes floats to the top, so you have to punch it down periodically to keep it wet and you, so you don't grow vinegar on top of it. So there's a tool and I actually designed one myself.

Really?

And I could get the patent, that'd involve being a lawyer again. But I love my punch-down tool.

Nice.

Yeah, it's got, A few innovations that I can't talk about.

You keep it secret. Okay.

Well, for me, it's my pair of pliers with a lot of things together. It's a pair of pliers, knife.

Your Leatherman? Yeah. Oh, Leatherman.

Yeah.

Yes. Those are amazing.

Yeah. When I don't have it, I say, oh.

A good pair of pruning shears.

Yeah. Yeah.

You got to have your favorite.

Yeah.

And it's fast.

Yeah.

So I have everything in one. So that's why.

Yeah. Leathermans are amazing. One of my dear friends, gave me one. So I was like, oh, I can't accept this. And he was like, you must accept this. You're gonna need this. And it's awesome. Your favorite time off activity when you have time off?

For me, in this month, I have more time to drink whiskey. Ah, yeah. Yeah. I can drink a glass of whiskey and my lunch and a glass of whiskey and my dinner.

Good times.

Yeah.

My hobby is actually ceramics.

Oh, really?

So I throw pottery. Uh-huh. That, that's how I enjoy myself when I've actually got some time off.

Nice. Do you have a kiln and things up here or?

We're, I'm not set up here yet.

Uh-huh.

But I work at a studio in Seattle as well that has the big kilns.

Uh-huh. What kind of things do you focus on?

Very large things.

Uh-huh. Big ones.

Big wine bottles, totem poles. If you can't throw, throw large.

Oh, that's a good tip. That's what they say.

Yeah. But no, that's my way to relax. Go play in the mud.

What do you love the most about this area?

I'd say the weather. We get sunshine whenever we want it.

Yeah.

Get four seasons, snow in the winter, get to go skiing up here, hot summers, go to the river.

The best weather for me is when it's snowing, but the snowing hard, not a little bit. That's why I really love this area because I can just stay in my house wash my window with a glass of wine.

Nice.

I just— I love it.

It's the only time Abraham gets a day off.

I was gonna just say, yes, no day. Keep on snowing.

Yeah, yeah.

How much snow do you typically get around here over an average winter?

Not a lot like in the past. When I start to work in this area, we can have it like 3-foot snow easy. Yeah, not anymore. We lucky maybe foot and a half to 2 foot right now when we lucky to have snow.

Yeah.

But in the past, every year is the same.

We planted our vineyard on Naches Heights with global warming in mind.

Gotcha.

Because you don't want it too hot for grapes either. Too cold or too hot.

Yeah.

So we, we do really well in the hot years up here, and that's only going to keep changing. And the snow is getting less and less every year. There's no doubt about it.

Yeah.

Last one, the start of a perfect day. Is it whiskey again?

Grappa and coffee. Yeah, the Italians call it a caffè corretto.

Oh yeah, that sounds good.

The best for me is when I don't have any problem in my workday and finally they say, oh yeah, we done the day, we no problem, no surprises, no surprises, no problem, everything is smooth. It's not many those days.

Yeah, that's a perfect day.

Yes, perfect day.

Yeah, for me it's how quick can I get outside?

Yeah.

How can I get out in the sunshine and the farm?

Let's go get out there now.

Paul and Abraham, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and being on Farm Walks today. It was really nice to meet you both and get to know you and keep up the great work up here.

Thanks, Keith. You're welcome up here anytime.

Yeah, I really appreciate you coming.

Glad to be here.

Thanks again to Paul and Abraham for having me up to Will Ridge Vineyards for a great conversation. You can learn more about Will Ridge Vineyard Winery and Distillery at willridgevineyard.com and Naches Heights Vineyard at nhvwines.com. And you'll find those links in the show notes for this episode. In our next recurring segment that we're calling Provider Connection, we introduce you to good people to know working in nonprofit organizations and government entities focused on supporting farmers of all kinds of fields. Think of it like a networking opportunity without the awkward small talk. And in fact, this conversation took place at the Tilth Conference and Farm and Food Symposium, a great opportunity for learning and connecting. Let's make a provider connection with Ben Boll of Oregon Tilth.

Hi, I'm Ben Boll. I'm the Education and Advocacy Director at Oregon Tilth.

Nice to meet you, Ben. What is the purpose or mission of Oregon Tilth?

Oregon Tilth, we focus on organic certification, education, and advocacy. So a large part of our organization, we certify organic farms and businesses so that they're able to access the organic marketplace. We also work in advocacy to impact policy. And then we have several education programs. We manage the USDA's Transition to Organic Partnership Program. We use the acronym TOP, T-O-P-P, and that's a program that's really focused on helping farmers who want to transition into organic certification. So to provide the resources that they need to be successful, we have a couple key components of that program. There's a farmer-to-farmer mentorship program, which we get to pair experienced certified organic farmers with those who want to become certified organic. We also have a lot of technical assistance, so there could be one-on-one technical assistance helping people fill out paperwork, set up record-keeping systems, things like that. We have a lot of field days and farm walks where people get to learn about other organic farms, and have developed a lot of resources, videos, guides, and all sorts of things just to help people who want to become certified organic producers.

What area do you particularly focus on in your role?

So in my role specifically, I oversee the TOP program and some of our other education programs within TOP itself. As the name implies, with partnership, there's lots of other organizations that are a part of it. And so I work with about 35 other organizations across the Northwest to develop different scopes of work for them to— maybe they want to host a series of 5 field days, or they want to do a track at a conference, and I help them develop their budget and figure out what they're going to do to make sure it aligns with the TOP program. So it's a cool thing where the U.S. Department of Agriculture actually asked us as a nonprofit organization to manage this program on their behalf. So we get to deal with all the fun administrative stuff, but also I get to work closely with partners and help them figure out cool programs and things to try to reach farmers.

So it's not all on you to figure out and implement on your own?

Definitely not. Definitely not. It's cool. There's a lot of people working on it.

What size farms or types of operations do you typically work with this program?

Yeah, we work with all scales of farms. So we have small-scale vegetable producers selling direct-to-consumer. We are working with farmers in the eastern part of the state that grow grains, and maybe they have a lot of conventional ground and they've just started to transition some of their ground into organic. So we can provide help to any scale of farmer, and the farmer-to-farmer mentorship program is really a cool component of that too, because we have a whole number of mentors that are ready to go. And if we find somebody new who wants to transition in, we'll identify and find a new mentor to recruit them. We try to find somebody who grows the similar crops, is in the same geography, has a lot to offer to those individual farmers, and understands their production system, their climate, and all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, we work with anybody, any scale.

What would be one of your most recent or favorite success stories?

The mentorship program has been really cool. It's very rich with stories of farmers sharing the expertise that they've acquired for all of these years that they've been farming. Most of them are really eager to share that, and so we do get to pay them, but they're really excited to be able to share that information, which has been really cool. We actually have profiles, we have videos of a whole bunch of these different matches that are available on the Northwest TOP YouTube page. And so you go check out some of those. They're great stories to relate to and to just see that peer-to-peer learning that can occur with that mentorship program.

How do you find or recruit your mentors?

So everyone who's certified organic is listed in a public database. And so sometimes we'll look in that database If, say, we want a grain farmer from a certain county in Eastern Washington or something like that, as we are an organic certifier as well, so we work with hundreds of operations. And so we asked like our inspectors who go out to visit these farms each year, do you have any good recommendations? The person out there who's just been doing it for a long time has a lot of great stuff to share. We've also asked a lot of partner organizations like Tilth Alliance, where did you host your farm walks last year? Or who do you know in your network that loves to come to a conference and give a talk or that is a leader in their respective community. So we crowdsource them from different places. If we have to, the last straw is like cold calling people to try to see if we could convince them to, to be a mentor. But we get a really good reception to it.

That's great.

Yeah.

What areas of Washington, Oregon, or the Pacific Northwest do you serve?

Yes, for this program in particular, TOP, we have 6 states across the Northwest. So it's all of Oregon, all of Washington, Idaho, Idaho, and then going into Wyoming and Montana. And then we also have Alaska, but all of these programs are available statewide in Washington and throughout the rest of that region.

What is your favorite part about doing this work?

Oh, that's a great question. I do really enjoy hearing the farmers talk about how they've become successful and how they've been able to find the resources that they need to be successful. I think sometimes someone who's transitioning into organic, they're trying something new that hasn't been done in their community. They can feel lost and they're out there without— they think they're doing it for the first time. And being able to hook them up with a mentor or a technical assistance provider or have them go to a field day where they meet somebody and then they become successful and they get to continue on that journey and not have to learn everything over completely new.

If someone is interested in your services, either becoming a mentor or being paired with one, what's the best way to start that process?

Yeah, thanks. So organictransition.org is the website for that program. You can find ways to sign up on there. All of our contact information is on there. All of the partners who we collaborate with are all listed on there too. If folks know them and feel more comfortable reaching out to them, but real easy form to sign up and get in touch to us with us on the organictransition.org.

Fantastic. Thanks for talking with us today, Ben.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

That's it for this episode of Farm Walks. If you like what you heard, you can rate, review, and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And be sure to share this episode with someone you love or even just like. For transcripts, show notes, episode evaluation, and more information, check out our website at farmwalks.com. Behind the scenes logistics and wrangling by Brommie Pugh and Ray Russell of TILF Alliance and Kate Smith of WSU Food Systems. Field recordings and audio engineering by Made with Bacon Productions. I'm Keith Bacon. We'll see you out there. Thanks for listening.