10/16/2026
🌱 I THINK Rogue Produce DESERVES A CLOSER LOOK.
Over the last several months, I've written a six-part research series examining some of the problems facing Southern Oregon. Economic leakage, agriculture, infrastructure, supply chains, biological value, and the loss of community knowledge.
What's interesting is that Rogue Produce is already addressing pieces of every one of them.
Here's what I mean.
💰 1. Oregon Money Leakage
Research cited in our series estimated that 76 cents of every dollar spent on locally produced food stays in the regional economy, compared with 28 cents for imported food.
Rogue Produce gives households an opportunity to redirect ordinary grocery spending toward regional farmers and producers.
🚜 2. Southern Oregon Farmers Are Not the Problem
Our farmers are spending valuable time navigating funding programs, marketing, finding customers, coordinating deliveries, and doing administrative work instead of farming.
Rogue Produce takes on some of that coordination, giving smaller farms access to an established customer base and distribution system.
🍄 3. Mycelium vs. the Machine
Centralized food systems depend on a relatively small number of major distributors and processing facilities. When one fails, the consequences spread across the entire supply chain.
Rogue Produce connects multiple independent farms and producers through a regional network. More connections mean more ways for local food to reach local households.
🚚 4. The Missing Middle
Approximately 30–40% of the American food supply is never eaten.
Meanwhile, farmers can struggle to move perfectly good products because aggregation, packing, storage, and distribution infrastructure is limited.
Rogue Produce is already coordinating several of those missing functions. They even collect household food scraps and return organic material to local agricultural operations.
🥬 5. Biological Leakage and the Deering Principle
Food quality changes with time, storage, and transportation. Some nutrients decline before produce ever reaches the consumer.
The Deering Principle also examines what happens when decisions become separated from their consequences.
Shortening the distance between growers and consumers addresses both concerns. We have more opportunity to understand where our food comes from and support the people responsible for growing it.
🤝 6. Human Leakage and the Continuity Gap
Knowledge doesn't automatically survive when experienced farmers retire.
In Josephine County, roughly 28% of residents are already over 65. That makes succession and knowledge transfer important questions for our agricultural community.
Rogue Produce helps keep farms visible and connected to the households supporting them. Those relationships matter beyond the transaction.
Now, Rogue Produce isn't going to solve every problem we identified in this research.
But that's really the point of the entire series.
We already have farmers. We already have customers. We already have people willing to build something better.
The challenge is connecting them.
I've been writing about these missing connections for months, and it's encouraging to see a local business doing the actual work.
And here's the part I hope people consider.
You don't need to change your entire grocery budget to participate. Start with one purchase. See what our local farmers are producing. Tell somebody about it.
Most of us are going to buy groceries this week anyway.
Why not see how much of that money we can keep working here?
I'm curious how many people in Southern Oregon have already tried Rogue Produce. What's your experience been?
