Hello UW Farm Community!

My name is Aisling Doyle Wade and I am entering my seventh week back at the farm as the Production Manager. I started my journey with the UW Farm back in 2017 when I was an undergraduate freshman at UW. I ended up spending much (if not most) of my time as a student on the farm or working on farm related projects. The UW Farm was a site of empowerment for me – it helped me discover a passion for small scale regenerative agriculture that has shaped the path I’ve taken since. I am very excited to be returning in this new role to serve this organization that has given me so much opportunity for growth and learning.

The Production Manager is a newly created UW staff position that focuses on the production side of running the UW Farm. As many of you know, we are a unique organization in that we are both a production farm – growing as much food as possible for sale – and a community-engaging educational farm. Balancing these two identities is often a challenge, but I feel it is an enormous asset to our impact. We are able to grow tons of food each year (13.8 on 1.75 acres in 2022) to feed our community while engaging with hundreds of student and community volunteers (825 total in 2022) and existing as a site for deeply engaging student projects and learning experiences.

In my new role I will be mostly focused on the production side of our operation: the crop planning, workflow management, field work and harvest/wash/pack/sales. However, virtually all of this work will be incorporated with our student and volunteer engagement efforts. In this way, every produce item that leaves the UW Farm is a product of education and community connection.