Know What it Costs to Grow (in English)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My name's Laura Masterson, and I run the 47th Avenue Farm.

We started growing organic vegetables over 20 years ago.

We're here on Grand Island in the heart of the Willamette

Valley.

We have 38 acres, and we grow a variety of mixed vegetables.

So when most people start farming,

they go into it for the reasons that I

went into it, which is I loved growing food,

and I was really excited about trying

to do that in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way.

But I quickly discovered, as a business person,

as an entrepreneur, that I couldn't do that unless I

could make ends meet.

And I think that's a big challenge for beginning farmers

for a couple of reasons.

One is because maybe they're not excited about the spreadsheets

and the number crunching.

The other is just the complexity of most small farms.

You really-- most people are growing so many different crops

that it's really hard to figure out even where to begin

with all of the analysis.

So that is where the cost study cohort

has been really helpful--

is in figuring out what the most important numbers are to track,

and helping people do that in a way that is less overwhelming

and actually happens.

OSU and Oregon Tilth are working on this cost study program,

which is basically just helping us figure out

the cost of production on really diversified types of farms.

How do we understand what a crop is actually

costing us to grow so we know what to sell it for?

Or we know, if we're selling it at the price point

the market will bear, is that profitable for us

or not profitable for us?

So that has been super exciting-- to get much closer

to understanding that kind of information

about the different crops.

We are just so excited that this is

a joint project between Oregon Tilth and Oregon State

University.

I think it's exactly the kind of thing

that the more these types of organizations

work together to help the small farms, the better it works.

They both have a little bit different expertise,

and they both have great relationships

with a lot of farmers in the valley.

So this has just been a really exciting project,

and they have both brought a lot to the table,

and I hope that we have more projects

like this in the future.