Bill and Karla Chambers started with 2 crops, about 300 acres and a dream in 1985. Today, Stahlbush cultivates 5,000 acres in Oregon and offers the freshest individually quick frozen fruits, vegetables, grains & legumes available.

As the farmers and the processors, Stahlbush Island Farms have the ability to leave the products in the field or on the vine until perfectly ripe. Fruits and vegetables are frozen immediately after harvest, sealing in the perfect flavor.

The Chambers' are examples of stewards of the land. They have built their operation on five core principles that look to sustainability as their ongoing goal:

• Soil Health:  With each growing season, they use conservation tillage to reduce erosion.  They also plant cover crops to return nitrogen to the soil and build organic matter. They even apply digestate from their biogas plant to their fields as it acts as an organic fertilizer and naturally increases microbial activity and builds overall soil health.
• Water Conservation:  They continue to improve their irrigation, using weather, soil moisture and evapotranspiration data to track water use and needs.  They have implemented automation systems that allow them to access real-time data that automatically controls and schedules irrigation based on the needs of each plant.
  
• Wildlife Habitat and Biodiversity:  They plant native species that attract pollinators like bumblebees and plant cover crops in the winter that keep the blue herons on the farm year-round. There is a thriving blue heron rookery or habitat on the farm.
  
• Social Responsibility and Employee Well-Being: They have programs and benefits in place for our employees to ensure job satisfaction and fulfillment. There are also programs in place to improve the local community, for instance they donate one million servings to local food banks every year. 
  
• Innovation:  They were the first farm ever to be certified sustainable by the Food Alliance. They have always been early adopters of new technology. Stahlbush was the first farm in Oregon to use GPS technology and the first to build a biogas plant that generates electricity using agricultural by-product in North America.