Interns making long-term impacts at U of I’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center

As a second-year summer intern with University of Idaho’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center (SOAC), Jessica Zaubi is starting a new cut flower production program.

Zaubi, who lives with her family in Sandpoint, is one of three SOAC interns this summer, aiding in the facility’s daily operations and learning the basics of organic agriculture. The other two interns are both in their first summer at SOAC and are residing on site.

In the summer of 2024, SOAC received $15,000 from the San Francisco-based Maxwell-Hanrahan Foundation in support of the internship. Pleased by the results, the foundation committed $75,000 over three years toward the program, beginning with $25,000 this summer. Local market farmers Leigh Bercaw and Nicole Gowdy work closely with the interns as SOAC instructors.

Zaubi, a senior majoring in horticulture and urban agriculture in U of I’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, became interested in adding beds for raising cut flowers at SOAC during her first summer as an intern, after Bercaw took her on a tour of another area commercial garden that raised gorgeous flowers.

Experienced SOAC interns are given the opportunity to complete a personal project to diversify the operation. Zaubi has tilled, shaped, prepared and planted five beds for growing cut flowers, such as sunflowers, poppies and zinnias. The beds are drip irrigated and are part of the facility’s regenerative market garden, which raises 4,000 pounds of produce per year for the Bonner Community Food Bank. Zaubi anticipates the first flowers will be ready to cut by early August, and they’ll likely be given to families using the food bank.

“Growing up, we went to a lot of farmers markets, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere,” Zaubi said. “It would be a lot of fun to own a small market garden, and most of them are organic.”

Zaubi believes the internship is giving her a solid background for a future in small-scale food production, including her first experience with operating heavy machinery.

“I don’t come from a farming background, and I’m a very hands-on learner,” Zaubi said. “I feel like there’s a bit of a disconnect in the classroom, and I’ve gotten more connected here.”

She learned about SOAC as a freshman when Kyle Nagy, superintendent and orchard operations manager, visited her Plant Science 102 class, bringing an assortment of heirloom apples raised in the orchard for them to sample. She and her father enjoy apple picking together, so she brought him to the orchard for its fall public apple tasting.

Last summer, Zaubi and fellow intern Kat Vanderbilt used funding from the local Kinnikinnick Native Plant Society to revitalize SOAC’s native plant garden, cleaning up beds, adding plant varieties better suited to the area and installing an irrigation system. This summer’s interns are aiding Kendall Kahl, an assistant professor and Extension specialist of sustainable organic agriculture, in creating a trial at SOAC comparing several cover crop blends.

Internships have been offered in Sandpoint since 2014, however the program has grown since the university acquired the facility in 2018. Kent Youngdahl, SOAC assistant operations manager, started with the facility as an intern, working four summers there while pursing a major in sustainable food systems and a minor in soil science at U of I.

After Youngdahl graduated, Nagy offered him a job as a SOAC manager. Youngdahl was promoted to supervisor and held that job for a couple of years before being promoted to his current position, in which he’s tasked with tending to daily functions of the facility, overseeing a rotational grazing project involving chickens and sheep and caring for the heirloom orchard.

“You learn all of these theories in college, but what can you do with that if you never get to apply it?” Youngdahl asked. “You can see the literal fruits of your labor at the end of the summer, so there is that rewarding aspect of it.”