The Legacy of That's My Farmer
- Laura Wayte
- Jun 7
- 4 min read
When Community Supported Agriculture businesses were first catching on in our region, an organization called That’s My Farmer started with the goal of helping farmers find customers, spreading the gospel of healthy, local food and raising money for low-income customers.
After 25 years, the organization has decided to cease operations.
“The goal of That's My Farmer from the onset was to raise awareness of supporting our local farmers and eating organically, and locally,” wrote coordinator Linda Davies in her farewell email. “I think we have succeeded!”
I decided to check in with Linda about the history of That’s My Farmer and what they accomplished.
Linda started work at Winter Green Farm as office manager and CSA manager in 2005. On her first day of work she attended the annual That’s My Farmer Ice Cream Social event and loved it.
“I didn’t know the first thing about CSAs,” she said. “The event was really beautiful and I was just blown away!”
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and describes a retail model where customers pay farmers at the start of the growing season with the agreement that they will receive harvests throughout the summer. This gives farmers a solid financial foundation to use in producing the harvest.
That’s My Farmer was started by First United Methodist Church Assistant Pastor John Pitney.
“He was really into the local, organic food movement. He read a lot of Wendell Berry,” she said. “John had a huge garden himself and really wanted to open the community up to what the farmers were doing with CSA.”
Pitney worked with other faith leaders in Eugene to create an annual event where farmers and customers could meet. At the event, held in the community room at his church in Eugene, farmers would present their farms and CSA programs while community members would come to meet the farmers and sign up for memberships. There was home-made ice cream, informative presentations about farming, and lots of community building.
Other features of the program in those days included kids activities, farm-education days for children, and vouchers, called Farmers Bucks. These “bucks” could be spent at the farmer’s market booths if the customer wasn’t interested in subscribing to the CSA.
That’s My Farmer charged a suggested donation at the door and those funds were collected and dispersed to the farms so they could create programs supporting low-income families who wanted to participate.
“It was always kept reasonable and no one was turned away who couldn’t afford to pay,” said Davies. “And all the funds were put in the Low Income Fund and that was shared with the farmers for their low income families. They could either subsidize a share, or give them a market card to use to the booth at the market if they couldn’t participate in the CSA for some reason.”
Deck Family Farm joined into this project in 2010, and developed a low-income subsidy program they called Feed-A-Friend. Along with the funds that came from That’s My Farmer, funds were donated by the Deck family, by CSA members, and other community members.
“Sometimes, when a customer left our Full Farm CSA, they would be invited to leave their remaining balance to Feed-A-Friend,” said Christine Deck. “It worked beautifully and we were happy to have that program available.”
Pitney eventually retired and moved out of the area, leaving Linda Davies and Katherine Hunt to take over. They morphed it into various iterations including sit down dinners cooked by the farmers and then at Party Downtown in Eugene. During Covid, Party Downtown, who donated their time, created packaged meals to sell for take out.
The whole endeavor was a big community builder for Lane County Farmers.
“In January each year, all the farms would come together at FUMC and have a huge potluck meal and everybody would sit around, eat a meal together, talk about their lives and happenings since the end of the season,” said Davies, “and then we’d coordinate and collaborate for the upcoming events.”
The success of That’s My Farmer seems to have caused its demise. By now, many more people know about how to purchase through farm-direct CSA programs and the farmers themselves are busy. Davies and Hunt had been looking for ways to step back from their work and to pass it off to the next generation, but for now no one has taken it on.
“The fact that there’s not that much interest in That’s My Farmer these days is just because we’ve done it,” said Davies. “We have created an awareness of eating organically and engaging with local farmers. And the farmers are helping people in need. It is all one big wonderful cycle, isn’t it?”
Linda leaves us with this quote from Wendell Berry:
