How Michelle Markesteyn Built Oregon’s Farm to School Movement From School Gardens to State Policy

This article is pulled from episode 1-5 of The Farm to School Podcast hosted by Michelle Markesteyn and Rick Sherman. For the full episode and transcript, click here.

From a dyslexic teenager with an eighth-grade reading level to a doctorate from Tufts University and architect of Oregon’s farm to school infrastructure—Michelle Markesteyn’s journey demonstrates how personal passion combined with strategic vision can transform an entire state’s approach to school food and agriculture education.

Finding Purpose Through Soil

Markesteyn’s path to farm to school leadership began in 1988 in her upstate New York suburban backyard. As an angry teenager frustrated with her mother, she “took a shovel and…within a week transformed my parents suburban backyard into just Oasis Gardens.”

“It was like in that moment of my worst anger and frustration as a youth, I just found peace and digging in the earth and was so grounded,” she recalls. That experience changed everything: “The light bulb went on for me. I got interested in school. I started caring about myself. I started caring about the earth, the world, the environment, my community.”

Despite graduating high school with significant reading challenges due to dyslexia, Markesteyn eventually earned degrees from the University of Montana, Vermont Law School (Masters in Environmental Law and Policy), and began doctoral work at Tufts University in Agriculture, Food, and the Environment.

A Student’s Challenge That Changed Everything

In 2004, while teaching environmental science and math as an emergency credential teacher at the Bay Area School of Enterprise in Alameda, California—”the first ever youth initiated high school in the country”—a student confronted her during graduation preparations.

“She said, ‘you say find your passion…but if you were really honest with yourself, you would either be an aerobics instructor or do your doctorate on school gardening,'” Markesteyn remembers. At the time, she was defending a dissertation proposal on farmers’ attitudes toward climate change.

That same student, Helene, did her senior project building a community garden on an old Navy base. “More than 300 people came and built beds together, worked together, ate together, planned together, and it changed my life.”

Markesteyn changed her dissertation focus to school gardens, despite skepticism from Tufts University. “The feeling at Tufts University was like, yo, Michelle, this is not actually a field of study…there’s anecdotal evidence…but this idea that you would do your dissertation research, there’s not even a theoretical framework.”

Her response: “Great then we’ll just create a theory.” She went on to develop theoretical research showing “how school gardens changed the curricular, physical and social learning environments in schools that influences development of the whole child.”

Moving to Oregon and Creating Positions

One critical insight from her research: “You can change what kids think know and feel about food. But you’re not going to change what they eat unless it’s available to them.”

After losing both parents within months of each other at age 28, Markesteyn moved to Oregon intentionally “to get a farm, raise a family and just put down some deep roots.” She met with the State Director of Education and Child Nutrition Program Director Joyce Dougherty with a bold proposition: “I will be acting as the state school garden coordinator until you hire me or tell me to stop.”

She got the position at the Department of Education around 2008 and began convening stakeholders, which eventually grew into the Oregon Farm to School and School Garden Network.

Crafting Oregon’s First Farm to School Legislation

Markesteyn’s legal training from Vermont Law School proved crucial. “I interned for the Legislative Council, the Vermont State Assembly, and learned how to draft and amend language. So in 2006, when we’re sitting at meetings in Portland and somebody says ‘Gosh, we need money from the state legislature.’ I was like, oh, well, we just write a bill.”

Working with Ecotrust (where she convinced Director Deborah Kane to hire her as farm to school director), Markesteyn helped craft legislation requesting $22 million for a holistic systems approach: positions at the Department of Education to ready buyers, the Department of Agriculture to address supply and distribution, and education funding to teach students about food sources.

“I postponed defending my dissertation to present to the Oregon State legislature the farm to school bills for the first time,” she shares. Despite her nervousness, the presentation resonated. The committee chairwoman, a former “lunch lady” who worked her way up to become a school superintendent, immediately understood the connection between school nutrition and agriculture education—”it was a game changer.”

Oregon became “the first state to have positions in two state agencies” for farm to school. The legislation created the position now held by Rick Sherman at the Department of Education and a parallel position at the Department of Agriculture.

Building Programs at Multiple State Agencies

As Oregon Department of Agriculture’s first Farm to School Manager (succeeding James Beard award-winning chef Cory Schreiber), Markesteyn worked to answer a fundamental question: “What is this?” With no job description or road map, she “used to joke that I would rewrite my job description every three months.”

Her approach centered on asking school food service directors what they needed. Their responses shaped multiple initiatives:

Oregon Harvest for Schools Campaign: Schools said “I’m starting to buy local, but nobody knows.” The resulting social marketing campaign (now at the Department of Education) promotes local foods in schools statewide.

FoodCorps Expansion: Schools reported “we’re buying it. We’re telling people about it…but that doesn’t mean the kids are eating it.” The Department of Agriculture housed FoodCorps, a national AmeriCorps service program bringing garden educators into schools to create connections between cafeterias and classrooms.

Celebrate Oregon Agriculture: When schools noted “the community has no idea what we’re doing,” Markesteyn created a “multi platform media campaign” bringing school food stories to life through cooking shows and family engagement.

Making Farm to School Commercially Viable

Recognizing that grants and volunteers couldn’t sustain the movement long-term, Markesteyn took an unusual step: launching a national school food product with Truitt Family Foods. They created shelf-stable hummus from sustainably produced Northwest beans that met USDA meal credit requirements.

“If you’re going to institutionalize change, it has to fit within our economic structure,” she explains.

Creating Rootopia: Farm to School Edutainment

Throughout her work at state agencies, Markesteyn kept hearing a recurring need: “What Bill Nye the Science Guy did for science literacy and science funding in schools for agriculture, food and the environment.”

On a 5:00 AM flight from Rochester to Seattle, she shared her vision for a multi-platform campaign with her seatmate, who spent six hours asking detailed questions. At landing, the woman revealed: “My name is Jamie Hammond and I produce Bill Nye the science guy.”

Over five years, they developed Rootopia, an “edutainment” platform combining education and entertainment. During COVID, they created 88 videos for the Oregon Department of Education. The Farm to School Podcast is part of this initiative.

Oregon State University Extension

Markesteyn’s current role represents another first: “Oregon State University Extension created the first dedicated farm to school faculty professor of practice position” in the country.

Oregon now has what she calls an “amazing trifecta”: dedicated positions at the Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, and Oregon State University, alongside community organizations and the Oregon Farm to School and School Garden Network.

Building a Career by Listening

Reflecting on her unconventional path, Markesteyn shares her strategy: “I’ve made my entire career…by listening to when you’re in one meeting, somebody says, ‘you know what, we really need.’ It happens every time…Don’t we really need? Well just do those things. If you do those things they turn into a job. Dream it, do it.”

Her advice for creating change: identify what’s needed, figure out how to do it, then create the position to make it sustainable. Whether that meant telling a state agency “hire me or tell me to stop,” writing legislation without being asked, or launching commercial products to institutionalize change, Markesteyn’s career demonstrates how vision combined with action can build entirely new systems.

Her journey from struggling student finding peace in a backyard garden to shaping statewide infrastructure shows how personal transformation through food and soil can scale to transform communities, schools, and entire state systems.

Listen to the full podcast episode to hear more details about Michelle’s journey, including stories about her doctoral research, policy advocacy work, and the serendipitous connections that shaped Oregon’s farm to school movement. Plus, get the recipe for Oregon Cranberry Chutney!