Cascadian Farm now a Rodale Institute center

The day dawned cloudy and there was an up-valley smokey haze. It would be less hot than it has been. I was destined for the Cascadian Farm Home Farm, a famous place, a fertile bench of farmland near Rockport across Highway 20 from the emerald green waters of the mighty Skagit River.

The farm was the brainchild of one Gene Kahn who, in 1972, as a recent college graduate and student of history, spied the uniquely beautiful property and put his plan into motion. Old friends followed him from the east coast and new friends joined his budding enterprise from more local environs. One of their brands was called “Many Hands” for good reason. Too many hands at times, it’s sometimes very difficult to be a budding businessman when your excess employees are too close of friends to let go. Sometimes tearful decisions have to be made, upriver jobs are hard to come by, but it was a business just like any other.

Rockport is not an easy place to farm: It rains 3-4 times what it does in La Conner. The east coast transplants fell in love with the remote mountains and kind of tried to dream the rain away. It was an experiment, what can we say? Sometimes the strawberries rotted, sometimes the speeds had problems, sometimes they had to get extremely creative with their marketing. Pretty soon they had created a name for themselves and outside producers had to be brought onto their team, things got more complicated; such is the way of the world.

Being certified organic didn’t make things easier. As you might well imagine, organic fertilizers are usually more odorous, especially when made soggy by a few inches of rain. They eventually decided to get their crops produced and processed in more appropriate growing conditions. Blueberries became the crop that did the best, so a success they became. It took a lot of sweating bullets, but Kahn persevered and finally found a buyer for his enterprise and Welch Foods, of grape juice fame, became the owner. It gave Kahn a reprieve to pursue other pursuits. In time, General Mills bought it from Welch’s and the Cascadian Farm brand became a household name with frozen and canned products in nearly every store in America.

Kahn maintained an involvement, bringing in a farm management team. Jim and Harlan Meyer squared up the blueberry scene and the plants are beautifully productive.

The farm has moved once again and is now the Rodale Institute Pacific Northwest Organic Center, with national headquarters in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Jerome Rodale started studying organic agriculture many decades ago and his son Robert continued in his father’s footsteps, researching new organic farming practices, principles and technologies. They have the longest standing organic-conventional side-by-side plots in the country at 40+ years.

This gift was formally accepted by CEO Jeff Tkach Aug. 5. A small contingent of friends and associates attended the wonderful occasion. Tim, the present farm manager, gave us a nice tour and brief history which I knew from my own personal experiences. Kahn accepted an award for his vision and the vision of the future of the farm is a work in progress, but it is in very, very good hands.

I look forward to what they ultimately do, but research and education on sustainable agriculture is in their mission statement, so we’ll see what sorts of new collaborations might transpire.

Johnson owned a Skagit Valley farm in previous years.