Once upon a time…
Farmer Randy grew up on his grandfather’s mixed fruit and vegetable farm in upstate NY, which has been in the same family since 1680! While working with Grandpa Jack and his Uncle David, Randy developed a love of plants and learned how to be a good land steward through conservation practices like cover cropping and working with the seasons.
Randy left the farm to pursue a career in academia and went on to research blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry production as an undergraduate at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo. He then obtained a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied tradeoffs in how woody plants use carbon and water in stressful environments.
During this time Randy continued to be involved in the larger agricultural community by working with farms across the United States to meet food safety regulations and provide safe, quality food to the world as a GlobalGAP inspector.
Randy eventually settled in the Portland area after meeting his wife Nonnie. He currently splits his time between teaching conservation biology and plant physiology at Lewis and Clark College and spending time on the farm.
Cohesive Farms
In the spring of 2024 Randy grew way to many plant starts for his own garden and decided to sell them to friends and neighbors. This led to lots of great conversations about caring for the plants and sparked a dormant passion, to bring people together over the interest of growing good food.
Randy and Nonnie started dreaming of starting a farm, but the obstacles were numerous. Finding land, securing funding, making network connections. Then one day driving home from a GlobalGAP inspection Randy heard on OPB (the local NPR station) a story about the Headwaters Incubator Program. The program is funded by the local soil and water conservation district and aimed at providing those with farm experience the resources to start their own operation by leasing land and equipment along with educational opportunities about land stewardship.
As soon as he got home Randy told Nonnie about the program and reached out to Headwaters to apply. After a few months of dreaming and anticipation, Randy and Nonnie were accepted to the program and started planning. It didn’t take Randy long to settle on a name for the farm, Cohesive.
Randy wants to help build community by bringing people together interested in local, high quality, and seasonal produce. It also gives a nod to Randy’s PhD research; cohesion is one of the two forces (the other is tension) that allows water to passively move from plant roots to the leaves where it transpires back to the atmosphere.