Farmer Interview with Beth Rasgorshek
(first in a nine-part series)
by Scott Vlaun

Beth Rasgorshek has returned to her childhood home, just west of Boise, Idaho, to farm. In the midst of a landscape dominated by chemically intensive industrial agriculture, and under intense development pressure, she has carved out her niche as a pioneering organic seed grower. Utilizing the cast-off machinery of a waning local seed industry, Beth produces some of the finest seed available of many treasured varieties, to the delight of gardeners everywhere. Beth has grown for Seeds of Change since 2001. She was interviewed at her farm...

Scott Vlaun: How long have you been farming?

Beth Rasgorshek: I started farming in 1993 in Portland Oregon. We were a very small community supported farm, I and a business partner. Over a five year period it grew into a 120 share CSA (community supported agriculture) business in Portland. We lived in the inner city and commuted out to some pretty beautiful farmland on Portland's urban/suburban intersection. So that created this huge passion in me around fresh produce and food. It was something I didn't even know I had in me. But thanks to some business partners and just being able to grow a lot of fresh produce, food became my passion. I love fresh vegetables, and I love to eat, and I love to talk about food. So after five years of doing a year-round CSA, because in Portland we could keep some crops in the field all winter and do a lot of storage crops, I decided I wanted to go home.

And home was here in Nampa (ID). I didn't quite know what I would be doing. I just knew that I wanted to go home. I got called for whatever reason. My family has been seed farmers for several generations and I returned in 1999 right when the federal organic standards were being implemented and they were requiring organic seed for organic production. And so I thought well, if I could be mechanized, maybe I could do seed crops and stay a very small business, and make it. This was all theoretical. Maybe I could make it. So I decided that, with a lot of family help, I would figure out how to do organic seed production and see if I could eke out a living on seven acres.



SV: So how has that worked out for you?

BR: I can't make 100% of my income on the seeds; it's just not there for whatever reason. I also do a seasonal greenhouse business for six weeks in the springtime. I try to get people turned on to food, and turned on to some really exciting varieties. There are a lot of tasty tomatoes out there beyond Jetstar or Big Boy. It's a great way to connect with people here in my hometown—around food—because we're maybe not going to connect around other topics, or other issues. If I can get somebody talking about food, and maybe recalling a food memory, it's been a great day.

SV: Did you start growing for Seeds of Change in 1999?

BR: It took me a while to get on board with Seeds of Change...because I didn't have a lot of seed growing experience. It took me a couple of years. It was Mike (Heath) and Fred (Brossy) that got me introduced to Seeds of Change. (Editor's note: Fred Brossy and Mike Heath are long-time Seeds of Change growers. Look for an interview with Fred Brossy in an upcoming eNewsletter.)

SV: So you started in 2001 with Seeds of Change?

BR: Yes. And of course I needed to be certified organic for Seeds of Change. This land was farmed conventionally by my father for over thirty years, so I needed three years to transition it to organic. So for those three years I could mess around. I could play with different crops. One year I just did buckwheat. I did three or four back-to-back cover crops of buckwheat to build the soil. 2001 was the first year that I was certified organic.



SV: How many different crops have you tried?

BR: Too many! (Laughs) I got out of fresh produce because it was too diversified, so when you start growing 14–18 seed crops it's still too diversified. When you start growing five different kinds of beans, and leeks and onions and herbs, it just gets messy, it gets busy. You have to think about management issues; how's it all going to play out at the end of the season.

SV: So you're essentially a one-woman operation?

BR: Well, I have a lot of help from family. My brother is a seed farmer and he's helped with technical expertise. My dad and I work together almost every day...unless it's weeding... (Laughs) I feel like I'm the luckiest person in the world to have my dad teaching me seed farming, and all the mechanical skills that come with it. I'm amazed every day at just what I learn from him. I wouldn't be nearly as successful if I didn't have him helping me. Because of him I'm highly mechanical and I'm able to keep my labor expenses at a minimum.

SV: Where did you get all those amazing seed cleaning machines that are out there in your barn?

BR: There are interesting characters around here that wheel and deal in used seed cleaning equipment. In those three years that I was transitioning the land to organic, I spent a lot of time going to auctions, visiting these used equipment dealers, and also visiting a lot of the local seed companies here, trying to learn as much as I could, not only about seed production, but also the seed cleaning part of it because I have to clean my own seed and I knew nothing about it. It's probably the one thing I would change if I could; I would like to have been more well-versed in the seed cleaning part of it before I dove into the seed production part. It's a whole other world with a lot of different pieces of equipment and specialized cleaning techniques. I still wish I knew a lot more than what I know now.

SV: Now that you've tried all these different crops and techniques, how do you go about picking the crops that you want to specialize in?

BR: Thanks to some major crop failures, (Laughs) or just knowing that I've made mistakes, I've tried to look backwards at the whole process of seed production. So I'm looking at how the seed will be cleaned and how the seed will be threshed or combined. Also, can I direct seed or transplant? Can I cultivate with a tractor? Do I have to thin the crop once I get it planted? And what are its water needs? We are in an irrigated desert valley, so if we're in a drought year I have to consider that too. I'm always working backwards, as I call it. It helps me to figure out if I can raise a successful crop if I know the whole scenario from planting to harvesting to cleaning. That's kind of what I have wizened up to. There are plenty of crops where you do it once and you know you don't want to do it again. Somebody else is better at it than you are, so you let them do it.



SV: So you are slowly starting to specialize more?

BR: I like doing the beans. I've been able to gather up the appropriate equipment to make beans pretty straightforward, as well as the edamames. (Soybeans)

SV: What's it like being a woman organic farmer in the middle of a fairly male-dominated, industrial-scale, conventional agriculture?

BR: I really didn't think about when I moved here. I'd been farming in a very progressive city, Portland. It didn't really occur to me. I just thought it was great to be back in my hometown. I don't know that anyone could get away with it. I had prior relationships with the families that farm around here. It's more of a challenge. The farm auctions are a trip. When you're in a sea of men wearing Carharts and you're one of the only women in the room, that's pretty intense. I'm only buying antique seed cleaning equipment. You do tend to get a lot of attention. It's not something I ever really wanted, I guess. It is a traditional male profession.

All my neighbors tell me I work too hard for having only seven acres.



SV: Is it because you have so many different crops?

BR: Yes, the diversity and the small scale.

My neighbor over here (gestures to the south) always says, "You organics, you work too hard." (Laughs) I feel bad that I'm turning them off to organics because I work so hard. In some ways I wish my neighbors were doing organics, because they have the expertise when it comes to the equipment and the growing conditions. I'm surrounded by excellent farmers. They know the soil, they know their crops. They know what they need to do. I always think: They're the ones that should be farming. I don't necessarily have the mechanical skills to sustain me for a long time to be a farmer, but they do.

SV: What is that is keeping them from becoming organic? Do they spray a lot of Roundup?

BR: The trend now is that they are using a lot of GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) crops. That's a lot of what's going on, GMO corn and alfalfa seed. You name it. It's here. Organic farming? They just don't know anything about it. They're on a track or in a mindset that this is what they know. They don't want to change. They don't want to be different. Guys like Fred Brossy and Mike Heath, they were all conventional farmers, but somehow they took a look at the economics—and the soil quality—and they decided that they needed to change. I don't know why it doesn't appeal to the big brothers of the world, speaking of my brother.



SV: How does it affect you to be growing with all the GM crops around you?

BR: It's part of the process. If I take on a crop, I have to consider whether it could cross-pollinate with a GMO crop that is being grown across the road by my neighbor. I certainly can't do a corn seed project here because there is GMO corn in all four directions. So I certainly can't do that. (Laughs) It's just part of it. I have great relationships with my neighbors. I don't judge them. We just talk. And I would much rather have my farmer neighbors than a subdivision.

SV: Which it looks like a very real possibility around here.

BR: All the farmland is sold. It's just a matter of time before it's developed.

SV: So you'd rather see a crop of GMO corn over there than a bunch of row houses?


BR: I think so. Neither one is a pretty picture, but I have a lot of sentiment about the farmland having grown up here. It's the toughest thing about being home; all the farmland that is growing houses.

SV: It's got to be hard for you.

BR: It's a big emotional deal...but organics makes sense to me. It's the only way that I could farm, to take good care of my soil, and feed it. And know that through the healthy soil I'm growing some healthy plants that give me high quality seed. It's the only way that it's made sense.



SV: Do you think that organic seed is really important for organic production?

BR: That's a tough one. In my mind, I know that if I have a healthy plant it's going to resist pests and some disease pressures. I've grown enough fresh produce to know that I don't need treated seed, or conventionally grown seed, to get good production. I've grown enough with my own seed or with Seeds of Change seed to know that I get great results. It's been grown in an organic system and it's going to an organic system. That's what the seed knows. At the greenhouse, when people ask, "why would I want organic seed? Why wouldn't I want to get seed at the store that's been raised conventionally?" I try to explain that those seeds have been produced under high input production, with high doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, that's what that seed knows, and it's going into an organic system that doesn't use those fertilizers and obviously not those pesticides. The only way I have been able to try and communicate this is that it's like if you as an American got plopped in an Asian culture where you don't know the language or the food or the culture. You don't know any of that. That's the only way I can try to explain it to people. Aren't you going to be more comfortable being stateside? People all know what the American flag is, and spaghetti is spaghetti, and Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart... (Laughs)

SV: Bad analogy! (Laughs)

BR: But, you know. You drive on the right side of the road, all those things. That's the only way I've been able to explain it. I don't know if it works or not. You can give me some feedback.

SV: It makes perfect sense to me that seeds which are grown in an organic system and bred in an organic system are going to perform better in organic systems in the end. They're not going to be looking for those intense inputs.

SV: What are your favorite crops to grow, the ones that you have an attachment to? I heard you talking to some of them today like they were your buddies.

BR: Yeah, my buddies! (Laughs) I love the edamames because they are so nutritious as well as delicious and tasty. I wish more people in the world ate edamame because they are just so good. Economically they are a good crop for me as well. They take a little extra work to combine but I always look forward to all the edamame I can eat when they're in season.

For me, I love doing new things, like direct seeding a row of onions and getting a good crop from that, something that I've never done before. But you also have to keep doing what you know how to do, and do it well. The garden beans I like for different reasons. I can mechanically handle them from start to finish. I've been able to find some small scale bean cleaning equipment to make them efficient to grow. Does that make sense?

SV: Yes it does. Thanks so much for talking with us.

Scott Vlaun
Editor

Photo captions: (1) Beth Rasgorshek on her tractor at Canyon Bounty (2) Beth harvesting parsnips (3) Picking cucumbers destined for seed (4) Cutting the cukes in half to access the seed (5) Scooping out cucumber seed (6) A batch of cucumber seed being stirred in a bucket (7) Beth in her barn with some of her antique machinery