5 Rivers Agriculture

Grant County, WA

None of our growing partners are more diverse than 5 Rivers Agriculture, which has been growing hay, beans, corn, apples, cherries, potatoes, onions, and (of course!) wheat on 20,000 acres in the Columbia River basin since the 1940s. At 5 Rivers, wheat is a major crop because irrigation from the river produces grain with the consistently high protein levels bakers love.

About 5,000 acres of the farm are organic, including one amazing stretch where we grow some of our organic wheat. It's called “the Bench,” and it sits 1,500 feet up a nearby mountain. In the words of farm manager Patrick Boss, “I t's just a beautiful location. There's no pests up there. There's no diseases. It's all by itself. It's hard to get to, but the growing conditions up there are fantastic. It's purely organic virgin (land) that has never been touched by chemicals, and we're never going to change it”

“The whole atmopshere of being out there is exciting,” he says. “You're actually producing something that you know people are going to eat and enjoy, that they're going to touch and feel. That's a big part of it.”