Farm Walks 2022

Hayshaker farm

College Place, WA

Radicchio

An 8-acre vegetable, fruit, and herb producer, Hayshaker Farm is a unique operation powered by horses, mules, tractors and humans and located in the fertile Walla Walla valley.

Owner and operator Chandler Briggs made the conscious decision to power his farm with draft horses for a variety of reasons: ecological, financial, and cultural. Powered by grass and hay, three horses (two Belgian mares and one gray dapple Percheron) provide cultivation power for discing, plowing, and harrowing, and as an added bonus, they also provide fertility in the form of manure. While those are certainly notable benefits, horse-powered equipment is also cheaper, easier to maintain and, it alters the pace at which one can work allowing the operator to better understand the relationship between healthy soils, bodies, and ecosystems.

Hayshaker Farm is distinct because it's driven not only by horses, but by values too. They believe in paying workers living wages, that feeding people is activism, and that their approach is a journey, not a destination, and that feedback and improvement are part of the process.