Despite late start, Norris berry farm still growing strong

But harvest eventually got underway, having started on June 23, two weeks later than normal, at Norris Blueberry Farm in the Umpqua area in Lower Garden Valley. The Norris farm sells most of its blueberries wholesale to large domestic and foreign markets, but offers local sales at its sorting, packing and shipping facility for two weeks during early July.

The smaller U-pick blueberry fields in the county opened in the last week or so for those people who wanted the experience of venturing into fields and picking their own.

“Most farms here and in the Willamette Valley and Northern Oregon were late,” said Ellie Norris-Assmus, a co-owner of the Norris farm, of the harvest.

She said the first harvest through the fields produced a good quantity of blueberries, but the second pass was lighter than expected due to issues with pollination. She said that was the case for most of the large blueberry farms in Western Oregon.

She added the demand for the berries has been up and because the quantity is down, the price has been “great.”

Norris farm sells its blueberries to markets across the U.S. and Canada, and to several foreign markets, especially in Asian countries. In 2021, Norris berries were the first in the U.S. to be exported into China.

For the Norris family, it’s been quite an expansion since Paul and Sandy Norris planted a 5-acre field of blueberries in the mid-1980s to keep their teenaged daughters busy during the summer. The farm now consists of 400 acres of organic blueberries, 250 acres of conventional berries, 18 acres of kiwi berries and a facility with six sorting lines, six packing lines, five coolers and a shipping dock for loading semi-trucks and trailers.

On a peak day, the facility can sort and process 180,000 pounds of berries.

With a wide smile and laughter, Norris-Assmus calls the farm “a hobby gone wrong.”

During their junior high, high school and college years, Norris daughters Amy, Carrie and Ellie and their friends worked in the family’s expanding blueberry fields and sold the fruit at a roadside stand and at a local farmers’ market. Now at 40 years old, Norris-Assmus is a full-time employee of the business and 43-year-old Carrie Norris is a half-time employee.

While Paul and Sandy Norris are still frequently on site, the two sisters have gradually taken over the operation of the farm with the help of 10 full-time employees and seasonal local workers and contract crews.

“They’re running the farm,” Paul Norris said of his daughters. “It makes me very proud to watch them develop the operation. It’s fun to watch them move the farm forward.”

The daughters said their parents and the farm taught them to work hard and to realize there are usually no quick answers to problems that unexpectedly arise.

“They taught us the process of starting something and making sure you do a good job and finish it,” Carrie Norris said. “Seeing a problem, figuring it out and working through it. Dad would say, ‘Attack the problem.’”

As each of the daughters graduated from Roseburg High School, they went off to college but returned to help with the summer harvest, packing and shipping process. Carrie Norris returned every summer even while attending medical school and then becoming a primary care physician and naturopathic doctor at a clinic in Arizona. She and her husband, Ryan Sweeney, also a physician, returned to Roseburg in 2010 to open a clinic, allowing Norris to split her time between the farm and practicing medicine.

“I just love it,” Norris said of the farm. “I was always in the packing house. It’s been fun to be there for each step as we grew bigger and bigger.”

She added that she is fascinated by the overlap of medicine and agriculture.

“The health of the body and of the soil, what you put into them, matters,” she explained in regard to the body and soil being productive.

Norris-Assmus worked in Portland and Seattle in the outdoor retail industry for several years after college, before deciding to return to the farm in 2014. She now oversees all the audits, food safety and organic practices, hiring and human resources.

During the four months of harvesting blueberries and kiwi berries, the sisters share the responsibility of running the packing house and coordinating personnel and the workflow.

To help advocate for and promote the blueberry industry, Norris-Assmus is vice chair of the Oregon Blueberry Commission, the secretary for the North American Blueberry Council and does committee work for the United States High Bush Council. Paul Norris had been a member of those associations and now his daughter is representing the family and industry.

“It’s nice to have somebody involved in the blueberry industry so we’re better able to understand changes in the market as they happen,” Carrie Norris said of her sister’s willingness to be that representative.

The sisters said they are happy to help guide the farm forward and are pleased that a third generation of the family is becoming old enough to help with the summer harvest.