Interview by: Victoria de Aranzeta. Photos by: Ashley Lance

Amica Farm (Ah-me-kah), means friend in Italian, was formed in January of 2018 by Nicki Passarella and Irina Schabram with the mission of growing nutritious, flavorsome foods utilizing community centered events, like local farmers markets, to educate people about the many diverse foods that thrive in our region. 

Nicki and Irina have developed their interests and honed their skills through many years of growth, career changes and challenges before realizing their passion of farming as a way of life. Irina Schabram, originally from Germany grew up surrounded by nature and family farming—she becomes recharged after spending time alone in nature or at the farm tending to her crops. Irina finds the joy in the minuteness of life and decided to pursue farming with full vigor after reassessing her previous career as a funeral director, and found like many of us that her current path was not her own. Irina and her husband moved to Portland and ironically ended up across the street from Zenger Farm, the fates collided and her path sealed. 

Nicki Passarella’s journey was winding but always contiguous; she grew up in a suburb outside of Philadelphia and had a love/hate relationship with the area. After a terrible car accident which changed her life in many ways, she focused her energy in a positive direction. Her recovery forced her to reevaluate food not only as a source of nutrition but a vital part of health and healing. In 2008 Nicki made the trek out West to Portland, Oregon in her late 20’s after an unusual internship at a Colorado farm her passion and goals were even more focused. Nicki started working at the Portland Farmers Market as a volunteer and moved through many roles before becoming a market manager. She developed long lasting relationships with farmers and supporters at the Farmer’s Market, with whom she still collaborates with at Amica Farm. It is her testament to the longevity and desire to foster friends who share a passion for the preservation and viability of local agricultural pursuits.

In 2017 Nicki and Irina met at the Zenger Farm internship, which is well-known within the local farming community as a top tier program to learn not only about food systems, but the business of a functioning profitable farm. It was during this internship that Nicki and Irina spent long days together hard at work, which gave them time to unearth each other's interests, passions and personalities. This internship was a catalyst that helped to form and cement Nicki and Irina’s friendship and furthered their journey to pursue the dream of Amica Farm. Their dream became a reality after they toured the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District’s (EMSWCD) Headwaters Farm Incubator program, that aids in the development of new agricultural businesses, supports farmers, and provides educational training, and workshops. Just a few weeks after this tour, Nicki and Irina applied for the program and a few months later they were approved and obtained 1 acre of leased space to grow on and develop. 

While not certified organic, Amica Farm is required to maintain certain standards to grow at EMSWCD. Organic certifications are being widely discussed now and the topic of what it means to be organic is not going away any time soon. Nicki expresses that Amica is not seeking certification yet as they are direct sellers, meaning they sell directly to the consumer without a middle man grocery store . Consumers can see first hand the results of the hard work of lrina and Nicki and Irina’s labor and hear the passion as they share their story and food with them. For most, certification is not enough. 

2020 is the third growing season for Amica, which means they have had some time to fine tune their systems—each year bringing a new opportunity for personal and business growth. This time of year Amica is sowing new seeds for market and has approximately 40 individual crops growing, and a plentiful amount of variety within that. At the start of their journey, Amica was growing hundreds of crops and a wide variety that perhaps was more than they could successfully handle. With varying growing systems, spacing, and irrigation, after this first season they thoughtfully decided which crops they wanted to focus on most and growing specific crops with similar systems.

Today, Amica grows mainly long season crops which are more profitable, but also considerably better for soil health and long term sustainability. Long season crops are just what they sound like, a crop that has a long growing season to maturity allowing the plant to be harvested multiple times. The positive impacts of long season crops are plentiful: time, energy, and mental health benefits of spending less time weeding, sowing seeds and planting. Nicki weighs in more on the sustainability factor of growing long season crops “I think any kind of small scale, lower till impact on the soil is going to be a better bet than certainly large scale agriculture in terms of soil sustainability.” Some of the favorite long season crops grown by Amica are tomatoes and melons—you heard it right, melons! Surprisingly there are a few varieties of melons that thrive in the wet, overcast and tree heavy bioregion of the Cascades in Oregon. Typically melons require hot and dry weather and prefer Central and Eastern Oregon, but Irina has done extensive research on varieties of melons that benefit from the sometimes cloudy days. While Amica Farm favors long season crops for their numerous benefits, they are also known for their delectable tender greens, salad mixes, chicories and brassicas in the Fall and Winter, short season crops can be quickly grown and harvested so they can be brought to market and enjoyed by the consumer more quickly. 

The excitement in Nicki’s voice and her smile can be heard through the phone as the conversation shifts to her favorite crops. Nicki prefers the underdog crop, the one nearest to her heart is perhaps one of the most overlooked, celery. Most of us think of celery as the classic companion to peanut butter and raisins or as that final addition to a vegetable stock—Nicki hopes to change that perception with her flavorful celery. “Local farm grown celery to me is like nothing else. It is so good, there is actual real flavor especially in the leaves which you do not even get an opportunity to eat in the grocery store, I would say there is 10% as much flavor in the leaf as the stalk.” Celery is extremely labor intensive and it takes passion and interest to grow it well; Taking at least 4 months of tending and maintenance before it even gets planted into the ground, with its own irrigation setup. Celery is an exceptionally picky and heavy feeder ,which means it has a strict set of nutrients it needs to grow well. Nicki is typically about consistency but in this case celery wins. 

The real joy for Nicki growing celery is being able to educate the community and share delicious, nutritious celery that has a flavor and texture that most of us have never enjoyed. She strives to use each new crop Amica grows as an opportunity to share its unique story and  invite people to try a new flavor.

“That moment of people coming back and saying Woah your celery is a game changer. Being known for celery for me is life goals.” 

Nicki also enjoys the challenge of growing chicories which do exceptionally well in our bioregion west of the Cascades in the cool, cloudy, wet climate-chicories are particularly fond of winter. Amica Farm wants to share foods that we may all be familiar with but have had them in the most bland salad mixes, or basic meals—she wants to change the way we view food and introduce people to what real flavor is. 

There are a lot of different ways to farm, and to Nicki there isn’t one particular image that defines what a farmer is anymore. Nicki believes “The future of farming is under 5 acres, on a hand scale growing soil and as a byproduct growing food with a values based system around an ecosystem that encourages biodiversity in animals.” Nicki hopes to start working with Growing Gardens, which is an organization that has several programs that educate children, homeowners and incarcerated folks on growing gardens. One of the programs Nicki wants to participate in is working with the incarcerated at facilities around the Portland metro area to educate and build and grow a sustainable garden. Her desire is to share her first hand knowledge to help support communities that need it most. 

“It is empowering and encouraging to see people really want to know this information. Growing food is very important to me, but actually sharing the growth of that food is just as important. I’m looking at different ways to share that knowledge and for me it is with really marginalized and underseen populations, especially with everything acutely happening right now, I want to do something with my privilege, earned and unearned and I want to make a difference.” 

While Nicki waits for these educational farming and gardening programs to open back up due to Covid-19, her time will be spent taking a moment to enjoy a crisp cool IPA outside, learning some new recipes and working hard to make Amica Farm better every day.

You can find Amica Farm at Woodstock Farmers Market all season, South Waterfront in the late summer, and at the Oregon City winter market from November until the spring. You can also find Amica Farm’s delicious produce from Fernweh Food Company, Fernweh utilizes watermelon and shishito peppers, but will also use an array of random bumper crops and ‘ugly’ produce for their meals. You can support two rad female local owned businesses that collaborate together to fight food waste, who embrace the idea of what nutritious and healthy food really looks like, and educate people on sustainability, the impact we have on this Earth and the future of food.

A final note: We at Fernweh Food Company want to say a huge THANK YOU to Vic for putting together this wonderful piece, highlighting some of our favorite farmers! Check out more work by Vic here including her graphic designs, illustrations and writing samples.