Deck Family Farm
Last Updated On: March 29th, 2024 at 09:35AM MST
Contact information
Farm Address:25362 High Pass Rd.
Junction City, Oregon, 97448
Primary Contact: Christine Deck
Secondary Contact: Nancy Barrett
Primary Phone:
Type: Cell
Number: 541.953.3393
Email: deckfamilyfarm@gmail.com
Secondary Phone
Type: -----
Number: 815-491-0466
Email:
Website: http://www.deckfamilyfarm.com
Internship information
General Farm Description: Deck Family Farm is located in Western Willamette Valley. The farm is a highly diversified operation that focuses on Regenerative Agriculture practice using pasture based animal systems. Owned and leased acres span approximately 300-500 acres and animal groups include Heritage Red Wattle pork, Heritage Galloway Beef, Pastured Poultry, Lamb, and a Raw Jersey Micro Dairy. Organic eggs, raw milk, cheese, fruit, nuts, and vegetables. Deck Family farm stands on the principles of Regenerative Agriculture and sustainability in all forms; energetic, environmental, and financial. Practices currently employed include riparian exclusion and restoration, management intensive grazing, humane animal handling, reforestation and Oak Woodland plantings, nutrient management, ethical business practice and transparency. The farm practices regenerative agriculture improving soil through nutrient management systems of assessing soil needs, applying composted manures, ash, and lime. DFF employs a 7 year rotation to graze, renovate and restore pastures. Over the last 20 years the farm has put 1mile plus of riparian corridors into the Creek Restoration & Enhancement Program (CREP), performed 5 Environment Quality Incentive Programs (EQUIP) projects to sequester and compost manure on farm, and planted over 100,000 trees through the Forest Trust Program. All forage produced on farm is certified Organic with Oregon Tilth, maintains a humane handling certification with GAP, Good Animal Practices and, is American Grass-fed Certified by AGA. Deck strives to build reasonable efficiencies and economies of scale for financial resiliency while acknowledging that the lives of the animals we raise and the people we feed are all sacred. Deck Family Farm currently have three major marketing outlets. 1. Farmers Markets in Eugene and Portland 2. The Farms CSA, Full Farm CSA 3.. Wholesale accounts We build community through our farmers network that collaborate to provide products for the FFCSA. DFF runs a year-round education program for 8-10 intern/trainees and apprentices that includes a cost of living allowance, introduces trainees to neighboring farms, supports externships and on and off farm research projects. Approximately 50% of DFF graduates continue into some sector of the agriculture industry. Deck Family Farm is a multi-generational and community-oriented farm. The ideal applicant thrives in a full and rich environment of activity and diversity. The farm has open gate; policy, that welcomes visitors any day but Sunday. Deck is dedicated to being transparent in our practice and is commitment to keeping our agricultural heritage alive and relevant for our farm community and beyond.CRAFT Member Farm? No
Internship Starts: Immediately
Internship Ends: Applicants considered year round
Number of Internship Available: 2 positions currently available . 8-10 intern/apprentice positions total
Application Deadline: Open
Minimum Length of Stay: 1 year w/ stipend, short term visits considered
Internship Details:
Our Farm Education Program will hep you build the skills needed to support a family as a farmer. We are especially looking for men this year as our program is heavily enrolled with women and we desire more gender balance. You will be trained in all aspects of a diverse family farm from soil analysis, planting and harvesting forage, rotational grazing and fencing, animal birthing, nutrition, handling and harvest, process and packaging, vegetable seeding, production and harvest, bringing all these products to market and the spreadsheeting skills to analyze the process along the way. AND we will do all this while living in a community, building skills of sharing, patience, understanding, and self advocacy. Oh, ….and we will also have a little fun on the way!
The goal of the Deck Family Farm intern and apprentice program is to train the next generation of farmers. The farm hosts 7-10 interns and apprentices year round. The program is immersive, highly diverse, and grounded in community. Interns participate in all aspects of animal husbandry, nutrition, care, sales and marketing, market garden, and community building. Farm management, employees, and intern/apprentices work alongside each other. Lead enterprise managers support the learning experience of the students. Interns are part of the “Farmily”, a typical week might consist of working a farmers market, milking cows/goats, making butter, yogurt, or cheese, cracking nuts, slopping out pig stalls, helping to bring in newborn lambs, piglets, and calves into the world, running spreadsheets, feeding chickens, collecting eggs, chopping wood, harvesting fruits and vegetables, and preparing a meal for the community. Opportunities at Deck are only limited by the imagination.
The farm enterprises are as follows:
Raw milk dairy: Milking an average of 16-18 cows year round. The herd is held as a cooperative and owned by shareholders who pay for feed, care and milking of the herd. Butter, cheese, and yogurt along with fresh milk are produced for shareholders.
Heritage pasture-raised hazelnut-finished pork. Sows farrow in the barn in the winter. Piglets are fed raw milk from the dairy during weaning and finished on hazelnuts. We produce our pigs birth to finish.
100% Grass fed and finished Certified Organic Heritage Galloway beef. Management intensive grazing has brought greater fertility to farm pastures, and rotating crops of grains, legumes and grasses has extended our grazing season to 8-9 months of the year.
Chickens: Organic heritage layers for eggs, and roasters for meat. All chickens are out on pasture during the day and housed in chicken trailers or tractors at night to prevent predation. Chickens are grazed behind and beside, cattle. In addition to their great tasting eggs, the poultry is an integral part of breaking parasite life cycles and bringing fertility to the pastures.
Sheep: Our mixed breed flock of Cheviot, Dorset and Suffolk ewes ranges between 120-150. Lambs come in early Spring. Much of our grazing for the sheep flock is on leased Organic ground and off-site.
Vegetables: Graziers Garden provides veggies for the Full Farm CSA (FFCSA) which is housed at the farm and supplies farm members with meat, milk, eggs, veg, fruit, nuts, grains, ferments, and more. If you were interested in homesteading this would be a good enterprise in which to participate.
Marketing: The farm markets direct to customer through farmer’s markets, buying clubs, grocery stores and the farm’s Full Farm CSA (FFCSA). Farm interns participate in the marketing level of the business in addition to the farming because it is through marketing that the farm receives the resources to operate. Marketing runs the engine of revenue and drives profitability.
Deck is a for-profit business that strives to maintain a reasonable economy of scale. If you are interested in homesteading practices, we can provide some training in food preservation and community living, but our program is substantially rooted in what it takes to run a successful farm business rather than a subsistence homestead.
COMPANION PROGRAM: Homesteading and Hearth holding
Deck Family Farm is strongly rooted in community living and in the spirit of building a sustainable and healthy farming lifestyle. The hearth holding companion program to our farm intern program has its focus on homemaking and homesteading skills. This will include but not be limited to: meal preparation and clean up, household management, gardening, harvesting, canning and preserving, dairy and cheese making. Basically, all the skills needed in keeping the home hearth healthy and happy! So, if you are someone who is interested in building community, are hardworking and flexible, enjoy hearth holding and want to develop and hone this skill, give us a call.
The workday begins at 7 AM with an all farm meeting, milking, and farm chores. We break for an hour at noon and finish the day between 4 to 6PM. The work week is 5 days on 2 days off, 8-10 hours/day. We appreciate flexibility depending on the season and work load.
Accommodations are modest, either shared housing in an intern room, cabin or COB (Adobe) house.
We are currently offering the following placement for the 2023-2024 season
1 year internship with room, board and stipend. Interns will rotate in at least two enterprises during the first year, usually in one of the following: Pastured Pork, Raw Jersey Dairy, Vegetables market garden, Beef Herd grazing and Management Intensive grazing, Lamb, Pastured Poultry, Marketing. Interns will rotate through as many areas of the farm as possible but personal interest, aptitude and availability plays a key role in placement. Stipend is paid in advance of the month and is meant to cover incidental expenses while in an educational program. Stipend is a total of $10,000 for the year.
Home and Hearth holding Family Life: Deck Family Farm most often has a full house of visiting family, friends, and employees. Being open to the challenges and joys of a busy household is a must. We share most meals and interns participate with family members in meal prep and clean up. Interns have full use of bathroom, shower, and laundry. We ask that folks bathe regularly, change into clean clothes while in the house, and in general practice good hygiene in respect for all household members. Family members of all ages work alongside interns and employees, while this can be an asset in terms of gaining a broader vision of farming life it can also bring challenges in terms of space, patience, and learning to work with a diversity of ages and cultures.
We love vegetables and try to have them at every meal; however, we believe that animals are an intrinsic part of a balanced healthy food system and for this reason we prefer NOT to accommodate strict vegetarian or vegan diets.
Companion Program: Meat Processing and Value-Added Products
This is perfect for someone who is interested in the culinary side of farming! We’re looking for someone passionate about creating high-quality food and cares about how those animals were raised. Some of the key things you will learn are:
Animal butchery
Sausage making
Cheesemaking
Lard rendering
Broth making
Sanitary practices
Knife skills
Kitchen and cooking skills
Kitchen/business management
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets
Record-keeping
Driving skills
You will be an important part of our house-made, value-added products program. You will primarily work alongside our processing manager and be trained through hands-on experience with written Standard Operating Procedures. This is a very dynamic role. A usual week will consist of producing and packaging 1-2 batches of value-added meat product (sausage, broth lard, or pet food) and 1-2 batches of cheese/week. There are also semi-annual events and dinners that happen here, so you will assist in preparing those meals. April-November is poultry processing season so you will be part of the crew processing chickens and turkeys from live animal to packaged product. When needed, animals need to be put down due to disability or sickness. When possible, we save this meat for ourselves or our farm dogs. Although, we don’t require you to kill an animal if you don’t want to, the opportunity is there to learn how to humanely and respectfully kill and process livestock.
You will also assist in delivering our livestock to our USDA processor and picking up the resulting packaged product. This is a very important part of running the farm that takes an often-overlooked degree of knowledge and planning. These are integral skills and protocols to know, especially if you intend on raising animals for slaughter and sale in the future.
This track will prepare you for work in many food handling and preparation jobs. It will be a great way to learn butchery skills if you have goals of becoming a butcher, meat processor, homesteader, chef, or own a livestock farm. There are also many opportunities for working on the farm and gaining animal husbandry experience. About 30 hours/week are dedicated to meat and dairy processing. The remaining 20 hours can be made up in our other intern tracks that are listed above. If you are interested in this companion program, the best contact is Jeremy at 716-410-2933 or Deckfamilyfarm@gmail.com.
Educational Opportunities: Humane handling, rotational grazing, forage management, irrigation, fencing, milking, spreadsheets, marketing, birthing, community living, market gardening, breeding programs and basic medical treatments, farm equipment, plumbing, electric wire, visits to neighboring farms, yogurt, butter, sausage, lard, broth, and cheese making.
Skills Desired: No experience required, however must have: a strong work ethic, ability to work long hours, ability to follow directions, willingness to work on interpersonal and communication skills, Interest in working with a range of cultures and ages, live in community and share community meals. Flexibility, forgiveness and humor.
Meals: All food is provided, evening meal is family style, with all community members sharing rotating cooking and cleaning chores.
Stipend: $10,000 for 1st year internship, Room and Board included.....Second year apprenticeship positions open after completion of first year.
Housing: Shared intern room, cabins, COB (Adobe) home, or large canvas tents. Kitchen, bathroom and laundry access in main house.
Preferred method of Contact: Email or phone