PORTLAND, Ore. — In her 2019 TEDxPortland talk, Julia Niiro took the audience through her own journey from corporate agriculture marketing to owning and running a small farm in Canby, Oregon to starting what she hoped would be a simple way for people to get better produce direct from farmers. She went on in her 2019 TEDx talk at the Keller Auditorium in Portland to describe how what started with one pig farmer developed into what would become MilkRun, a company that connects food producers and small farmers directly to people, without the grocery store food chain in between.
In her KGW interview with Brenda Braxton, Julia talked about how, to her, it is more than about her company and the business, it is about feeding people, and how, during this pandemic, that has become vital. She and her coworkers stepped forward to help farmers, who were at risk of loosing everything when the food economy shut down, get their produce to people who were suddenly in great need. It is this model, she believes, that is is necessary to save the small american farm. As she said in her TEDx talk, many are facing extinction in the current agriculture model that favors the large industrial supply chain. What seemed 'insurmountable,' she says, was made simple not by inventing anything new, but by connecting what was already there, cell phones and apps, to the challenge of getting food from a small farm to someone's home.
Julia describes growing her idea for MilkRun, from her own farm in Canby, Oregon to a new model in how people can get their food.
Julia Niiro's 2019 TEDxPortland talk
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This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
