Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and District 4 Commissioner Vince Jones Dixon will lead a grand reopening celebration of the CROPS farm Wednesday, Aug. 27 beginning at 10 a.m. The long-running Office of Sustainability program has found new life through an exciting partnership with Feed’em Freedom Foundation.
In what was once surplus Multnomah County land overrun with blackberries, a team has built a modern incubator farm that features innovative farming techniques and practices to help area farmers build economic opportunities, resilience to climate change and expand distribution of fresh and healthy foods.
CROPS — which stands for Community Reaps Our Produce and Shares — is a Multnomah County initiative that promotes culturally specific farming business development, healthy eating, and community building. CROPS is managed in partnership with Mudbone Grown and the Feed’em Freedom Foundation. The partnership has a specific focus on connecting Black and African Immigrant farmers and other marginalized people working in agriculture.
The Feed-em Freedom Foundation is a regional food hub focused on empowering farmers to get access to land and direct-market chains, and build their capacity to distribute their crops, all in a cooperative economic model.
The CROPS farm was developed with innovation in mind. After years of development, the farm now features a barn, access road, greenhouse, wash and pack station, fruit orchard, and more modern technologies. These technologies include a bio-digester for producing energy and fertilizer, a self-contained hydroponic freight farm and small-scale solar panels. That equipment is all meant to help sustain farming operations even as climate change makes weather more unpredictable and extreme. The farm is also used as a demonstration site where the community and other farmers can learn agricultural practices.
WHO: Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon and Commissioner Shannon Singleton, Shantae Johnson, executive director of the Feed’em Freedom Foundation.
WHAT: Grand reopening of the County CROPS Farm
WHERE: 1980 W Historic Columbia River Parkway, Troudale, Ore., 97060
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025
CROPS: from surplus to sustainable
CROPS was started over a decade ago as a way to use surplus County land to grow food for families in need. County Farmer Jerry Hunter led the effort to clear three acres of land choked with invasive blackberry bushes and transform the site. Over the next 10 years Jerry created a safe and healing environment where people of all ages and backgrounds volunteered in the effort, learned and shared farming skills, built community, and grew fresh organically-grown food for the community.
In 2020, in a transfer with McMenimans Edgefield, farm operations moved to its current location near Multnomah County Animal Services. The Multnomah County Office of Sustainability led a competitive process and selected the Feed’em Freedom Foundation to run the site. Both the County and Feed’em Freedom contributed funding to develop the property. Improvements included adding a driveway, barn, and utilities. The Feed’em Freedom Foundation raised additional funds to add a greenhouse, bio-digester, freight farm, refrigeration, and other features.
