Empowering Growers To Thrive With Less Water

Dry Farming Institute in 2023: Taking Root

Hello Amy,

2023 marks a special year for the Dry Farming Institute–the work that we’ve all helped to create is taking root!! 2023 marks our transition from a working board to two paid staff with great projects. Read on to learn more about our 2023 successes.

As you make your year-end gifts, please consider supporting the Dry Farming Institute!

We’re excited to build an organization focused on:

Our Vision: to empower growers to thrive with less water &

Our Values transparency, communication, innovation, and collaboration.

Donate Today!

2023 Successes

Thank you for being in community with us!

Resilient Seed Stewardship Program Expansion

We are dedicated to increasing access to dry-farm adapted varieties.

This year we:

Introduced the Dry Farming Adaptive Collection: in partnership with Adaptive Seeds you can now more easily access dry farming adaptive seeds!
Expanded our Dry Farming Seed Directory: added new beans, New tomato and melon varieties are coming soon!
Increased crop production: we leased two quarter-acre plots in the Willamette Valley for seeds, variety trials, educational demos, and events!

Listen & Share Today: we love this 2023 Oregon Public Broadcasting story on dry farming!

Buy Dry-Farmed - A Marketing Campaign Grows

This year we expanded our marketing work in partnership with Culinary Breeding Network!

Tomato Fest 2023 was a hit – 400 people attended. We sold out of tomato ristras and melon boxes in 3 hours and raised $3000 for DFI!
We developed beautiful marketing materials, including posters, to educate and promote dry farming adapted varieties!
More farmers are promoting and labeling their #dryfarmed produce.

Check out the Dry Farmed Produce Directory - a great home base for consumers to source dry farmed produce!

New Education Collaboration: Western Water Resilience

We are expanding our educational programming through a new project to advance water resilience on farms in the west.

For the next three years, we’ll be directly supporting farmers with place-based demonstrations of water resilient strategies, events, and storytelling. Showing growers what water resilience on farms looks like in different contexts in Washington, Oregon, & California.

We are thrilled to be a part of this collaborative project with American Farmland Trust, Oregon State University Extension, the Washington Water Trust, the USDA's California Climate Hub and Northwest Climate Hub, as well as multiple partner farms and organizations.

Funded by the National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

Expanding Our Leadership: New Staff & Board

DFI hired our first two staff this year, Amy Garrett and Ashley Rood as Co-Directors. We also brought on two new board members, Kristen Trippe and Melissa Parks. Read more about them here!

Help us make 2024 another great year -- support our work today!

DONATE HERE

Thank you from our DFI Board and staff:

Ashley, Kristin, Matt, Lucas, Cathy, John, Amy, Eliza & Melissa(not all pictured here)

Dry Farming Institute

dryfarming.org