A local urban farm in Portland works with NRCS Oregon to increase production and meet operation goals, becoming a community-centered space and Seed-to-Plate catering business.
Meet the Farmer
Meet Stacey Givens, farmer, chef and owner of The Side Yard Farm & Kitchen located in Portland, Oregon. Stacey grew up in Southern California as the youngest child in a big Greek family and, from an early age, was immersed within a deep food culture. Her mother and Yiayia taught her how to grow, forage, and preserve food as women in Greece had done for generations before.
Stacey started working in the food industry at the age of 15 working at kitchens in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland. She found a home and community in Portland, with her Seed-to-Plate philosophy first sprouting while working at a local restaurant’s rooftop garden.
Driven by a deeper connection to her food and desire to create a community-centered space, she began farming on a small one-acre plot of land in northeast Portland’s Cully neighborhood in 2009 and developed her Seed-to-Plate concept into a full-scale catering business.
The Farm
Today, the farm hosts an average of 10,000+ visitors each season for workshops, farm events, dinners and brunches, grief groups, farm tours, BIPOC & Queer Collaborative farmers markets, and more.
Side Yard feeds upwards of 15,000 people per year through restaurants, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, donations, catering, and farm events.
With assistance from NRCS through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Givens installed a 20-foot by 45-foot-high tunnel on her property in 2015, extending her growing season and increasing local supply to meet demand.
In 2020, Stacey was able to purchase the land outright through a USDA loan for women farmers so she can preserve the land for future farmers. Throughout the years, Stacey has been inspired by the community around The Side Yard Farm and continues to expand the Seed-to-Plate catering business, starting with the seed and ending with the seed, in the field, kitchen, and all areas in between.
The Vision
The Side Yard Farm’s vision from the start was to create a space centered around food that was safe and inclusive for everyone from all walks of life. Stacey wanted to create a safe space for people to get out and learn about farming, especially for the queer and BIPOC community, and that is exactly what she has done.
Stacey not only provides a safe space for the queer community to attend various farm events and happenings, but also hires a lot of farmers from the queer community to support farm operations.
“We want to be working where it feels good and you feel accepted,” Stacey says. She feels lucky to be located in the middle of the city, where it’s easily accessible to people across the community.
Throughout the years of work experience in the industry, Stacey became well-skilled in the restaurant business. This helped her grow the know-how and connections needed to service restaurants with local produce and culinary herbs from the farm, a key component to the operation from the onset.
Being able to anticipate needs and specialty crops desired by local chefs was a trait that initially helped her succeed. However, there was more to the vision that was attained in more recent years navigating through unforeseen challenges.
With Rain Comes Rainbows
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt by countless producers nationwide; The Side Yard Farm was no exception. Various forms of adversity have helped Stacey grow and evolve the farm.
“Honestly, for a while I didn’t know if we were going to make it,” Stacey recalls. In 2020, Stacey was forced to take out an emergency small business loan and today she is honest about the challenges involved with bouncing back. Stacey notes the restaurant industry is still in repair and that small local businesses still need the community’s ongoing support.
The Side Yard Farm had to pivot and adapt to a new way of operating since 2020. The farm had to quickly transition from being ‘restaurant farmers’ to ‘CSA farmers’ during the pandemic.
Stacey says the transition has opened new, different doors for the farm. Side Yard Farm has now been running a CSA program for the last two years and currently has 65 CSA members, which is a lot for the less-than-one-acre urban farm to support.
“Everything comes back to food. It’s very full circle around food. No matter what we’re doing here – grief group, seed to plate dinners, farmers markets – it’s centered around food,” Stacey says.
The Side Yard Farm still works with a handful of restaurants, maintains the catering and events business and participates in a food donation program where anything extra is donated to a few local organizations.
The shift has resulted in a less structured, less formal approach to farm events and has created the opportunity for the added benefit of financial inclusivity. The Side Yard Farm is still able to cater to the community but with a change in service delivery, they were able to drop the price and intend to keep those efforts going, keeping true to their mission of inclusivity and accessibility.
Another evolution of Side Yard is seen in the summer BIPOC & Queer Collaborative farmers markets. For Stacey, being able to offer her farm space free of cost to BIPOC and queer community members is important to staying true to her mission. The farmers markets are a collaborative effort that bring the BIPOC community together and prioritizing community over competition.
In the pandemic, Stacey also bought a few teardrop trailers and developed farm-to-camp experience. People can rent the trailers and add on packages of fresh farm food to eat while they explore the great outdoors.
These new facets of the farm have also helped Stacey balance out and restructure the time for her personal life too; 80-hour work weeks just aren’t sustainable.
Stacey says the new pace and approach helped her shift priorities in her personal life.
“You can still have that dream and want that family and that life,” she said, referring to a desired work-life balance that has come to fruition for her.
Stacey is especially proud of two specific things on the farm. The first is creating an inclusive space; a safe space free of judgment creating a family community like a village. This is evident across all of the farm’s initiatives.
The other is a grief group that began 11 years ago when she lost her dad. The group gives people a safe space to talk and connect with others about their grief. People bring the favorite dishes of their passed loved one and feel a connection to people and food together in a safe place. The grief group dinners are laidback; no one has to share if they don’t want to. Just showing up and being present is important enough to know they are not alone in their pain.
“There’s something about breaking bread with people that makes it easier,” Stacey says.
It is just one more example of how the farm’s mission shines through and through. Stacey is a master at building and fostering community resilience by providing a safe, inclusive space for all identities, all while cultivating a love for farming and local foods.
Working with NRCS Oregon
Throughout the years, Stacey has worked with NRCS Oregon District Conservationist Kim Galland to connect her to NRCS and other local resources, grants and funding opportunities.
“It felt really good to be taken care of,” Stacey says of her work with Kim.
Stacey’s most recent NRCS contract was through the Conservation Stewardship Program, working on a water conservation program, a nutrition program and native pollinator habitat plantings. The CSP contract ended last year and at this point in her farming journey, Stacey has gone through all of the NRCS programs available to her for the current property.
“Thank you for helping us get on our feet all these years, with high tunnels and with all the other programs. It’s been amazing working with NRCS,” she says.
Stacey found out about NRCS through a farmer friend when she was just starting out, wanting to extend her growing season, and recommends others reach out to NRCS to see what resources are available to them in their area.
“I think a lot of urban farmers don’t think about government funding, because we’re so small scale,” Stacey says. “They may not think about organizations that could help us. I know I didn’t, until a large-scale farmer told me about NRCS. I urge other farmers to look into the NRCS for help with soil management, irrigation, high tunnels, because it’s definitely worth it.”
Looking to the Future
Farmer Stacey walking through rows of crops and a red shed in the background
Stacey thinks The Side Yard Farm property is perfect in its current state. One day in the future though, Stacey would like to buy a larger property a little further outside of the Portland metro area with about 10 acres for a fruit tree orchard.
This new dream is inspired by her family vacations growing up. Her family had a tradition of stopping to pick fresh fruit at the end of any trip, cherries, peaches and apples, specifically. Stacey envisions a U-Pick farm to use as an event venue. These future plans have the potential to open up more opportunities for working with NRCS.