Oregon Organic Hazelnuts
We are a group of organic farmers and food producers
who have created the Organic Hazelnut Growers Association
- an Oregon agricultural cooperative
Marketing
We are working to provide a source for organic hazelnuts grown by our cooperative members. We plan to offer retail, bulk, wholesale organic hazelnut kernels marketed through the OHGA Cooperative. Stay tuned for further news on this with the 2018 Hazelnut Crop!
Growers
We will provide a grower to grower support network to offer consulting, tips, experience, research and general good will to help teach the next generation of organic hazelnut producers. We want to be the source of educating new growers of hazelnuts in organic methods. We will do this via our website, videos, summer farm tours, meetings, and spreading the knowledge freely for the benefit of people and planet.
Processing
We are working to address the challenges of processing organic hazelnuts. We want to bring new technology to the processing steps that will make kernel sorting easier, offer “flash” steam pasteurization to preserve the flavor of the nuts, and provide a size appropriate facility that can process organic hazelnuts by farm lot. We want to support both small and large growers which necessitate different considerations in the processing facility to do so.
What we offer:
Education to Growers
We will be bringing an educational organic production page to this website in the future. We hope to collect methods being used by a variety of growers, videos, on-going research trials. Our website will be the repository of our collective learning about organic hazelnut production.
Summer Farm Tours
We have already begun an annual Organic Summer Hazelnut Tour in 2017. We are hosting the 2nd annual Summer Tour on August 15, 2018. You can learn more and register on our Growers page.
Source for
Oregon Organic Hazelnuts
We are working to be the lead promotion organization for Oregon Organic Hazelnuts. This includes marketing of hazelnut from our growers, and making connections between producers, consumers and buyers.
Organic Integrity
Our organization believes in the values and ethics supported in organic farming and food production. We strongly support the organic certification process for farms and handlers. We don't take these logos lightly and know that they represent a check and balance on how food is produced that enables consumers to have confidence in what they are buying and eating.
Farm to Consumer Connection
The OHGA will be comprised of small and large farms as well as small and large businesses. We hope to preserve traceability and credit to the farms that work hard to produce organic hazelnuts and the consumers who want to support their work.
OHGA Board of Directors:
Linda Perrine, President
Taylor Larson, Vice President
Joey Jaraczewski, Secretary
Katherine Reinecke, Treasurer
Maia Hardy, Member Director
Kirk Reinecke, Member Director
Don Hatai, Member Director