129: Chris Jagger of Blue Fox Farm on Scaling Up, Scaling Down, and Where Organic and Local Farming is Going from Here

Chris Jagger is the owner and operator of Blue Fox Farm, an organic vegetable farm in the Applegate Valley of southern Oregon. He is also the owner and head consultant for Blue Fox Agricultural Services, a full-service agricultural supply and consultation company focusing on ecological solutions for the modern farmer. Both his farm and his agricultural services use living soils as a foundation to scale farming operations efficiently and profitably. We discuss the changes Chris has seen in the organic and local marketplace and labor environment, and how Blue Fox Farm has worked to downsize in response to those changes. Chris shares how he has worked to determine what makes money with a sensible approach to crop budget analysis. We also dig into how Blue Fox Farm is getting better crops on a smaller piece of land, the economics of scaling up and scaling down, salad mix production, and mechanization and the choices Blue Fox Farm has made around that. It’s worth noting here that Chris rounds out his involvement with the agricultural community by hosting the Living Soils Symposium each March. The symposium is an interactive conference for farmers, interested in regenerative farming techniques, to exchange knowledge and gain insight in a peer-to-peer environment. Perennial support for the Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously provided by Vermont Compost Company and BCS America. Pictures, show links, and more at farmertofarmerpodcast.com/episodes/jagger.