Beth Kittle worries that 25,000 gallons of water might not be enough. The three massive green water tanks that sit alongside her barn hold 15 thousand gallons of captured rainwater. Another 10 thousand gallons are held in other tanks on the property. It seems like a lot, but as each summer feels hotter and drier than the last, she can’t help but think that it might not be enough to get her through the season.
Kittle is the owner and operator of Wholesome Family Farm, a small beef cattle operation near McMinnville, Oregon. The 87 acres sit flank rolling hills — the home to her herd of about 50 Angus cattle. The water from the tanks is a lifeline for watering her herd and pastures during the summer months and through dry spells in the fall and winter.
According to the USDA, extreme weather events that happen more frequently are and more impactful due to climate change. These events can cause a reported 85% loss in crops.
Kittle isn’t the only small farmer having to deal with a tougher climate.
To help support farmers, The Oregon Pasture Network provides educational resources, peer-learning opportunities, and grants for family farms across the region. It also connects consumers with producers for direct relationships that increase sales for farmers, and increase the access that community members have to fresh, organic, regionally-produced food.
Wanting, or even needing, access to that kind of food is what got Kittle started with cattle in the first place.
At age 17, Kittle was diagnosed with a rare and terminal type of bone cancer. She turned to her diet to help her stay healthy while going through various treatments and studies. Eating organic, locally sourced food was important to her health journey.
After beating cancer and marrying her husband, Jeff, Kittle decided to start her family. She stayed conscious about food quality, and worried about the effects growth hormones and other additives in meat might have on her children.
In 2003, the Kittles started buying cattle, but she soon realized that as beef prices were going up, the quality of the cattle was inconsistent. In 2017, with the right amount of space and experience, Kittle started raising her own lineage of cattle. She traveled to Denver, Colorado to pick out her “foundation girls.” Those Angus cows started the Wholesome Family Farm’s herd.
When Kittle first got into raising and finishing her own beef, drought and soil health weren’t at the top of her mind. But these quickly became obstacles she had to address to reach her goal of raising high-quality beef.
Oregon has had some wet years in the past few decades, but according to the Oregon Water Resource Department, “...average conditions have been drier than any other 22-year period in the past thousand years.” The western United States is in a “megadrought” that has been going strong for over two decades. According to the USDA, extreme heat dries out soil and can cause crops stress, leading to lower yield or loss of the plant completely.
To make the farm more resilient to drought, Kittle has invested in those massive water storage tanks and plans to soon double her reserves, which will not only ease the burden on her crops, but also her wallet.
Because as summers get hotter and longer, the bills start piling higher.
“The summer slump is what we call it,” Kittle says. “It’s just been really, really brutal.”
More extreme summers leave pastures struggling. With inconsistent access to good water, wasted pastures can’t produce the mix of fiber, protein, and other critical nutrients livestock need. Kittle says that growing a pasture that is good for the cows to forage on during the summer is one of her biggest issues.
Some farmers have no choice but to buy hay well into the spring, and sometimes through the summer, to feed their herds. Feeding a single cow hay can cost anywhere from $75 to $300 a month in Oregon, depending on the quality and type of hay.
Kittle would love to be able to get her cows well-fed from just Wholesome Family Farm’s pasture, but right now that isn’t possible. “We're doing the second best thing,” she says. “We're just trying to make it work.”
Researchers from Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences are working with Kittle and other local farmers to understand what crops can withstand summer heat and provide nutrient-dense feed for livestock. Their goals are to make it possible for Oregon farms to keep their pasture as green and nutritious as possible year-round through a mix of strategies, including pasture rotation to prevent overgrazing.
It’s a cyclical process. Taking pressure off vegetation leads to healthier soil, which can retain more water and keep pastures green into the summer. This system helps to mimic what herds were doing before modern agriculture, according to Mike Guebert, a program director at the Oregon Pasture Network.
“It’s an effort to work with nature rather than work against nature,” he says. “There's more of a realization now that working in harmony with natural systems is going to provide better outcomes.”
Guebert understands that cattle farming can be harmful to the environment, though. Cattle are the biggest source of greenhouse gases — primarily methane — in the agriculture sector. Oregon’s cows are the largest emitter of methane in the state, emitting more than all landfills combined.
The solution, Guebert says, is going back to grass-based systems where soil is left undisturbed by tills, so grassland ecosystems can thrive. According to the USDA, “Intensive soil tillage can increase the likelihood of soil erosion, nutrient runoff into nearby waterways, and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.” By avoiding tilling, pastures can keep carbon sequestered and the soil healthy.
In an effort to preserve the local ecosystem, Kittle has recently purchased the Green Lightning — a device that mimics the way lightning storms turn nitrogen molecules in the air into nitrates that can be dissolved in water. The water is then used to fertilize plants. “Rain and fertilizer is gold,” she says.
A lab at Stanford has been studying the effects of this type of nitrogen on a few types of grasses, and in a study from 2021 they found that the grass treated with this kind of nitrogen was taller, thicker, and denser than the untreated grass.
Kittle says her kit will infuse 25 gallons of water with enough nitrogen to fertilize one acre of pasture. She predicts that this nitrogen water could close to double the hay production, and would pay for itself in a year and a half.
“This could be huge for the future of farming,” Kittle says.
But it didn’t come without a cost.
In 2022, only 31% of farms in Oregon made a profit, with an average profit of just over $26,000. In many cases, these profits need to go straight into emergency funds, or to buying and fixing equipment. Kittle saved up almost $9,000 to invest in the Green Lighting machine, which will save money on fertilizer over time and avoids chemical runoff, but costs a significant amount of money when a family business is struggling to break even.
“It’s not a get-rich thing, let me tell you,” Kittle says, about her experience operating a family farm. “It’s more of a money pit.”
Kittle wants to protect the local ecosystem in the long run, but that isn’t always an option she can afford. She wants to share knowledge with future generations of farmers and hopes to pass the farm on to her son when she can’t work anymore, but he will need a second source of income, too. She wants to be able to donate beef to her community, but that means she needs enough clients to be able to sell beef at the “real cost” of producing it.
In addition to running the farm, Kittle also works for the Natural Resource Conservation Services as a consultant to support farms with soil nutrient management. She brings a farmer’s perspective to a position held primarily by soil scientists. The training process was long, but Kittle is happy to help farmers who “want to be better stewards of the land.”
Up and down the Willamette Valley, dramatic changes in the environment loom large for small farms. But with the right strategies and support, this resilient community is trying to stand their ground and stay ready for summers to come.