What We Actually Do
Sustainability, Honestly
Not a marketing page — a running account of what we've changed, why, and what we haven't gotten to yet.
Zero Pesticide Sourcing
No pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic inputs have been applied to any part of West City Farm since 2017 — two years before our first top-bar hive conversion. The 15-acre property operates on the same principles as certified organic farming, though we have not pursued formal USDA certification (the paperwork burden doesn't change anything we're actually doing on the ground).
Our pesticide-free commitment is verified annually through the third-party lab testing we do on every honey batch. The same panel that tests for food safety also screens for 200+ pesticide compounds. Zero detections in eight years of testing.
Verified: 0 pesticide detections across 200+ compounds, all 22 tested batches
Pollinator Habitat Preservation
Three acres of the farm are maintained as permanent pollinator meadow — not mowed, not planted with commercial crops, left to the mix of native grasses, Oregon wildflowers, clover, and phacelia that establishes naturally in this part of the valley. We overseed each fall with a native Willamette Valley wildflower blend from a local seed house.
The creek corridor along the western edge of the property is managed as a riparian buffer — no vehicles, no foot traffic during nesting season, no bank clearing. It's home to native solitary bees, ground-nesting species, and birds that control aphid pressure on the vegetable beds.
3 acres of permanent pollinator meadow · 0.4 miles of riparian buffer preserved
Packaging Choices
Our standard jar is Type 3 amber glass — recyclable everywhere glass is accepted, reusable for dry goods, and manufactured without plasticizers that can leach into acidic foods like honey. We moved away from plastic squeeze bottles in 2022 for all honey SKUs.
Shipping boxes are certified sustainable fiber, void fill is recycled kraft paper, and tape is paper-based. We use no styrofoam or air pillows. For cold-weather shipping, we use thermal bubble wrap mailers made from recycled content — the only synthetic material in our packaging chain.
100% glass honey containers since 2022 · Compostable + recycled shipping materials
The 1,000+ Hive Ceiling
In 2023, we made the decision to permanently cap our operation at 1,000+ hives. Not as a marketing statement — as a farm management principle. At this scale, we can still track colony health hive by hive, monitor Varroa counts by hand, and know which hive blocks produced the willowherb honey in late August versus the ones that foraged the buckwheat fields.
Beyond that, some of that knowledge breaks down. The farm would need a different scale of equipment, distribution relationships, and pricing structures that would change what we are. We would become a different business. We're not interested in that business.
Hard cap: 1,000+ hives. Enforced by choice, not by resource constraint.
What We're Working On
Not There Yet
Carbon accounting
We have not formally measured the carbon footprint of our shipping operation. We know it's real. We're exploring local courier partnerships for Oregon orders as a near-term option.
USDA Organic certification
We meet or exceed the standard — but we haven't pursued formal certification. The cost and paperwork burden doesn't change our practices. An honest explanation, not a defense.
Jar return program
We've explored a jar return / refill program for local customers. Logistics — cleaning, inspection, relabeling — make unit economics difficult at our scale. Still researching.
Solar
Farm electricity comes from Pacific Power's standard grid mix. We've priced a rooftop array for the barn. It's on the list for 2026 with a realistic budget in place.