Donna Smith, a voice for urban farming

By Cathy McQueeney
The Portland Upside
April 2010

It was at a family farmer and rancher community grassroots meeting that I met Donna Smith. My husband and I had driven in to Portland to attend the January meeting. We wanted to see what this Agricultural Reclamation Act (ARA) gathering was all about.

As a relative newcomer to the farming community, I was more of a listener than a participant in the meeting. Among the many interesting things I heard that night, Donna’s unique approach to farming in urban Portland stood out.

An increasingly visible presence in many Portland neighborhoods, Donna is co-owner of Your Backyard Farmer, a successful business that brings an innovative approach to community supported agriculture through urban backyard farming.

For the past five years, Donna, and her business partner, Robyn Streeter, have created small, sustainable organic farms in people’s yards. They help urban farmers grow fresh, in-season produce right at home, utilizing the homeowners’ own land.

I approached Donna in the parking lot after the meeting to get her business card for a friend I know would love to have a mini-farm at her home. I also wanted to congratulate her on volunteering to be a farmer and rancher delegate in Corvallis representing the Portland area.

The Agricultural Reclamation Act (ARA) is a tool designed to give family-scale farmers and ranchers a voice in shaping Oregon’s future food and agricultural policy.

On Sunday, February 28th, over 60 farmers and ranchers came together for the first annual Farmer and Rancher Delegation in Corvallis. Local Portland farmer and entrepreneur, Donna Smith, was among them.

A final version of the ARA, drafted by the farmers and ranchers who attended the meeting, will be approved and made public in May. To learn more about the Agricultural Reclamation Act, visit theFriends of Family Farmers.

She told me it was a very big night for her. For the first time she had really felt included by other farmers, who often discounted her micro-scale urban agriculture as merely “gardening.”

“We’ve always known that we were farmers because we were growing food. No matter if it was 25 acres or 400 square feet, a farmer farms food,” Donna explained to me.

For years she felt that her work wasn’t recognized as a viable part of the farming community. But this evening was different.

“Michael Moss [of Friends of Family Farmers] reinforced to me specifically that I have a voice and a right to use it and to bring it forward and he asked me to attend the Delegation. I said yes, even though I didn’t know what I would say or do, but I wanted to have a voice.”

I was certainly surprised to learn that Donna has not been viewed as a “farmer.” She so clearly seems like one to me. Imagine my reaction when I learned that not only has the traditional agriculture community been slow to recognize her status, the State of Oregon has no definition of a “farmer” or “farm,” so she doesn’t even enjoy legal recognition, an issue that came up at their grass roots meetings as well as at the Delegation.

I caught up again with Donna after the Delegation convened. I wanted to find out just what she said and accomplished.

She was excited about the opportunity and described the discussions as “so passionate and so fresh,” remembering the inclusiveness she felt.

“A string runs straight through us,” she said, “connecting us all—a room full of passionate farmers.”

While Donna attended primarily to ensure that urban agriculture was part of the dialogue and included in the Agricultural Reclamation Act, she was delighted to discover that others shared her view. Returning to her seat after a short break, she overheard a fellow delegate, a small family farmer from the Eugene area explaining to another farmer from Canby that urban agriculture was “the wave of the future.”

In an afternoon break out session where young and beginning farmers talked about the lack of available and affordable land to farm, Donna was able to join right in and advocate for urban agriculture as a way of addressing this issue.

With 67 individual small farms under cultivation this spring in the Portland metro area, and 27 consulting clients across the U.S., Canada and Australia starting similar farming ventures, Donna Smith and Your Backyard Farmer believe the future is now.

“We’re losing acreage annually to urbanization and erosion. People have lost the knowledge of how to grow their own food, have stopped teaching their children. We need food. We can bring food home again so that we all know where our food comes from. Urban agriculture will be a crucial piece of reclaiming and rebuilding our food system.

“I think that if we do not bring food back into the cities, we’re going to have safety, security and sustainability issues. We have to protect ourselves and our communities better, have our food sources closer to home, grow food specific to our area, not thousands of miles away.”

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To learn more about Donna Smith and Your Backyard Farmer, visit yourbackyardfarmer.com, email farmers@yourbackyardfarmer.com or call Donna at 503-449-2402.

Cathy McQueeney owns Blue Flower Family Farm in the Willamette Valley where she raises Shetland sheep, a variety of chickens and fruits, vegetables and herbs using a sustainable, biointensive model. Contact her at cathymcq5@yahoo.com