Unique Program Offers Farm Fresh Food for Linn County Families, Seniors June 9, 2025 Growing Healthy Communities On a warm and sunny May afternoon at Ejido Oso in Corvallis, Laura Bennett opened several storage containers filled with freshly harvested lettuce, onions, carrots and garlic, ready to package into food boxes for local families and seniors. Located along Pacific Highway West, Ejido Oso is a 12-acre community farm run by a small team of growers mostly from the indigenous community of Santiago Nuyoó, Oaxaca, Mexico. (In Mexico, an “ejido” is essentially an agricultural cooperative, while the word “oso” means bear, referring to bears that have been known to break into the farm’s beehives.) Last year, Ejido Oso began partnering with Linn County on a pilot program distributing farm-fresh food to hundreds of low-income residents and families in need. The program, called Food for Health, was so successful that InterCommunity Health Network (IHN-CCO) recently awarded a $75,000 grant to expand it, more than doubling the number of food boxes available during the growing season this year. “There’s a lot of potential for how this could impact families in our community,” said Bennett, produce sales manager at Ejido Oso. “It also provides a lot of support for our local economy and our local producers.” A Sense of Camaraderie Food for Health was developed by the Linn County Health Education and Maternal Child Health teams, based on a similar effort in Multnomah County. Both programs use what is known as a “community-supported agriculture,” or CSA, model, where customers subscribe and pay to receive food directly from a farm. In this case, Linn County is the subscriber, and food boxes loaded with fresh fruits, vegetables and meat are delivered to families enrolled in the program. About half of the food is grown at Ejido Oso, Bennett said, and half comes from other farms around Linn County and the surrounding area that have agreed to participate. “There’s a sense of camaraderie and motivation around packing these boxes,” Bennett said. “This kind of partnership is exactly what farmers want. This gets food that we’re growing to the people we want to grow it for, made possible by the help of the county.” Forty percent of program recipients are Spanish-speaking. Along with familiar local favorites like cucumbers, potatoes and strawberries, Bennett said Ejido Oso grows traditional Mexican and Central American crops to give families a taste of home — plants like fresh verdolaga and purple tomatillos milperos. “The boxes can function like a cultural exchange, where you’re always going to experience something new, no matter where your family is from or what you’re used to,” Bennett said. Transforming Food Systems In its first year, the Food for Health program distributed 50 food boxes twice a month throughout the season. Thanks to additional funding from IHN-CCO, this year the partners will distribute 100 boxes, three times a month. Diego Nieto, Food Systems Coordinator for Linn County, said there is a strong connection between food and healthy communities. “In public health, we love to talk about preventive care, and how it’s a lot more effective and cheaper to prevent disease than it is to cure and treat disease,” Nieto said. “I think removing barriers to healthy, whole food is step one to doing that preventive work.” Despite living in a fertile area that enjoys world-class agriculture, Nieto said there is still difficulty for some accessing healthy, nutritious food locally. He hopes this program can be a catalyst for change in the overall food system. “Ideally, the work that we do is bridging that gap and making use of the assets that this community already has,” Nieto said.
