Diving in with Deck Family Farm

There are those who say that living on a farm is like going to school. Then there are those who build their business around that idea. John and Christine Deck, the couple behind Deck Family Farm, have invested two decades into a unique blend of business and education. It’s hard to separate their farm from their intern program, or from their land, from their herd, or from their community. And it was all built to be exactly that way.

“This farm is very much informed by people getting together and sharing space,” Adam Daesen explains. Daesen is an intern himself at Deck Faily Farm and serves a supporting role in the team responsible for as farmers market logistics, warehousing, and general marketing. He’s committed to the Deck’s farming model and their internship program. “[The intern program] offers this abundance of diverse problem-solving situations. [It’s about] living with people and looking towards to the future of localizing food systems.” Those are big concepts for a small farm to tackle, but Deck is doing it. A combination of a diversified livestock farm and a training program, the pillars of their business are simple: steward the land, steward the next generation of farmers.

“In 2004 they bought this property, which was a fairly conventional cattle ranch [at the time].” Daesen makes it clear with his tone that conventional was not the way the Decks were looking to raise cattle. “As soon as they bought it, they stopped using any synthetic fertilizers or chemicals. It takes three years for grounds to be certified organic after the last spraying has occurred.” Three years is a long commitment to make, especially in an industry as acutely seasonal as farming. Regardless, certification was a priority for the Decks. “With both [John and Christine] being more scientifically orientated, they were doing a lot of reading, [asking] ‘what’s good?,’ ‘what’s cutting edge?’, ‘how do we make this land happy?’. They learned diversification was a great farming tool.”

In addition to their existing cattle herds, the Decks started to pasture raise a dairy herd, laying hens, meat chickens, hog, and lamb as well. These different animals offered a bigger variety of nutrients for the soil through their waste, in effect improving the land while living upon it. “It’s a hands free and natural [method], a symbiotic way of doing things. When animals live on the land as opposed to in barns, they are able to enrich that land. It has reaped its own rewards. Keeping cows on pastures and intelligently managing where they’re grazing, increases the production [of the pastures].”

By the time they were certification ready, the Decks had already begun “settling into deeper wisdom” about land management, as Daesen calls it. They were focusing their efforts around the idea that “you’re raising meat and selling meat, but also tending to the grasses.”

Fast forward to 2023 and Deck Family Farm is certified organic and thriving, running off a very intentionally crafted on-farm community. Daesen breaks the internship program down, explaining, “The first year is a broad exposure to agriculture. The second year is more specialization. The third year is owning a good deal of one of the many enterprises of running a farm.” Daesen himself is in his third year, on the team that manages the logistics of bringing the farm’s products to markets across the state of Oregon.

To Daesen, the Decks’ agricultural practices and their educational goals are very obviously and inevitably tied. “John and Christine are growing older, and succession is relevant to them but it’s a relevant topic to all farming in America. Finding young people who are interested in carrying this work forth is critical at this point. Otherwise, things will get conglomerated. Conglomeration will not only harm the quality of the food, but the environment at large.”

This is a subject that is clearly near to his heart, and important to everyone involved at Deck Family Farm. “There are so many people that are careful and smart and full-hearted about the land they’ve tended, and the Decks are in that space. Intensively managed pastures can be shockingly fruitful for the farmer, and the environment is also benefits by that. That’s really the central hallmark of Deck Family Farm. If you diversify your livestock and raise them in a pasture…” he trails off, unsure to how to sum it all up succinctly. He sighs and the smile in his voice is audible, “That’s it. That’s the whole point. That’s what the idea is.”

Find Deck Family Farm and their organic meats at Hillsdale Farmers’ Market every Sunday. Be sure to pre-order your Thanksgiving turkeys with them now, so you don’t miss out on these pasture-raised birds!