Old Oregon
ALUMNI
Farming for the Future
T
Shelley Bowerman has dirty hands and a clear vision.
he four farmers Lauren Bilbao, Claire Schechtman, BY JENNIFER BURNS BRIGHT who make up BA ’13, and Dan Schuler—each live on Eugene’s Ant Farm Collective grow different sites and have their own kitchen gardens, but share staple crops and produce, selling the work in the common plots that produce the market goods: them to local markets and restaurants many hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, potatoes, onions, winas part of a burgeoning “new farmers ter squash, and other hearty, nutrient-dense food. movement” that is using small-scale, This arrangement speaks not only to the resourcefulness sustainable farming to revitalize local that is the hallmark of the American farmer, but more subfood systems. But unlike other beginning farmers who rent tly to the revolutionary nature of Bowerman’s project as a or borrow money to buy land, Shelley Bowerman, BA ’09, postindustrial model of food production and distribution. and her partners rely on shares or work exchanges arranged By sharing both labor and available land, there is less need with landholders. for capital outlay and a greater potential for a profitable The “Collective” part of the Ant Farm, in other words, venture than with the average small family farm. The farmrefers to the seven different sites on which the group of farm- ers can dedicate time to farming instead of part-time jobs, ers grows food. The ant farmers—Bowerman and partners which, according to USDA data, most small farmers rely on
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WINTER 2015
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLIE LITCHFIELD