Blue Elderberry Farm microenterprise featured in Civil Eats

By Rose High Bear (Deg Hit’an Dine, Inupiaq), Founding Director

EWF was featured for the second time in 2025 in Civil Eats this month. They are one of those generous publications that offer free access to their articles without requiring a subscription and feature gifted journalists who cover issues like food policy, farming, health and climate. We felt honored to be featured in the Civil Eats article by journalist Rose Garrett. You can read her article here.

I discovered that some local farmers are subscribers, including a woman who visited our booth at Salem’s Holiday Market where we launched our new Blue Elderberry Farm product line last weekend. She walked up and thanked us for our support of non-Native farmers. She had read a quote from me speaking of how elderberry production can help to supplement farmers’ income. 

“I have an enormous amount of compassion for today’s farmers,” (Rose) said, noting recent efforts to incorporate blue elderberries into hedgerows for ecological and economic reasons. “They can sell their berries to people that are making syrup, and that gives them just a little bit more financial support for their farms.”

Elderberry cultivation and marketing was an important learning experience for us and our interns this past summer and fall. It will be a while before we are able to achieve a profit with our new business, but that seems less important to us at this point. We feel happier that we can learn to show others how to bring a special product from the world of nature to market and that we were able to meet a neighboring farmer and uplift her. This woman’s comment to us will remain in my memory for a long time.