ORGANIC PIONEERS
CLEAN FOOD JAMIE LUSCH / MAIL TRIBUNE
Fry Family Farm store outside Medford.
Fry Family Farm and Whistling Duck were among the first to go all in on organic farming locally By Damian Mann for the Mail Tribune
I
n the early 1980s, organic farming wasn’t on most people’s radar. At the time, Steve Fry and his wife, Suzi, had a restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, and a few friends were interested in farming without pesticides. “The organic industry was being born, it was in its infancy,” Fry said. They sold the restaurant and decided to farm near Horse Creek in Siskiyou County near Yreka, California. “I was selling what I was growing in Horse Creek in Ashland,” he recalled. “In Yreka you’re a hippie, but here you’re a hippie but they love you.”
That love affair turned Medford-based Fry Family Farm into a local organic institution. Fry and another farm, Whistling Duck, are among the pioneers who set the stage for a wave of organic farming locally. When they started, others joined the food revolution, but the farming life is a hard one, Fry said. “The people my age invented the business, and we get pushed out,” Fry said. Even so, two of his five daughters want to follow in their parents’ footsteps and are pitching in to help run the farm. The Fry family moved to Talent after a few years in Horse Creek. “At the time, we were selling at the (Ashland) co-op with some others from the Applegate,” he remembers. “A produce woman at the store
told me we wouldn’t make it.” Hardly anyone was producing organic food at the time, even though there was a huge demand for it, Fry said. But the produce — and learning to deal with the bugs without resorting to pesticides — was difficult to grow. “It wasn’t the prettiest stuff you’ve ever seen,” Fry said. “That meant I had to learn fast.” Other growers had created Oregon Tilth, a nonprofit advocating for organic farming, in 1974, which helped set the standards. Fry said he still does a lot of business in Eugene and Portland, and also sells his products at local stores as well as the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market. Fry Family Farm now has up to 90 acres under cultivation, and it’s a 100% organic farm.
“I was selling what I was growing in Horse Creek in Ashland. In Yreka you’re a hippie, but here you’re a hippie but they love you.” Steve Fry, Fry Family Farm, on his early days of organic farming 62
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