Potato Grower

June 2021

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22 POTATO GROWER | JUNE 2021 Marty Myers If there were ever any questions about Marty Myers's roots, they didn't persist for long. Myers was a fifth-generation Oregonian born and raised in agriculture. And while Myers is known as one of the most enthusiastic agricultural innovators in the world, his dream was always to do it in the fertile ground of his beloved home state, just like his pioneer forebears. Myers passed away unexpectedly in December 2020, but his warmth and vision will surely be a light to his community and the industry he loved for a long time to come. Myers began working for R.D. Offutt in 1994 as a business development manager focused on growing the company's influence in the western U.S. By 1999, he was heading up the formation and operation of Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, Ore., an ambitious, diversified project with the stated goal of taking farm sustainability to a previously unforeseen level — and long before the concept of sustainability was popular. Myers led the charge in developing Threemile's "closed loop system," in which the farm supplies for many of its own needs, from fertilizer to energy. One of his signature projects was to reduce farm waste by using dairy manure not only to fertilize organic crops, but to also produce energy via a methane digester. Today, Threemile Canyon Farms consists of 93,000 total acres, with almost 40,000 acres of irrigated farm land. It operates three conventional dairies and one organic dairy, raises pasture-fed beef cattle, and grows both conventional and organic crops including potatoes, onions, alfalfa, field corn, sweet corn, carrots, peas and blueberries. Myers's vision is echoed in Threemile's philosophy, as stated on the company's website: "We've challenged ourselves to question longstanding agricultural

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