October 2026 Community Cultivator: Naturekist Fruit Company

Oregon Food Bank is proud to recognize Naturekist Fruit Company as our October 2026 Community Cultivator.

Naturekist is a multigenerational Taiwanese-owned family farm in Hood River, Oregon.

They grow two varieties of Asian Pears on 50 of their 93 acres. They do not chemically thin their trees, and every aspect of the work is done by hand.

Standing among the trees in the orchard and listening to brothers Eric and Kevin Wang talk about how their family came to own this land 30 years ago is inspiring.

What their mother and father endured to keep the farm and land in the family is a reminder of how hard farmers have to work just to keep farming and providing for their communities. It never gets easy, but somehow they prevail year after year.

Learn more about the Wang’s story here

Kevin Wang, owner of Naturekist Farm Co. in Hood River

"Everybody's just working hard to raise their families, and that's the resilience I see in the community."

Naturekist is the only Taiwanese-owned farm in the Gorge. Three years ago, this second-generation family farm decided to give all their excess fruit to Columbia Gorge Food Bank and Oregon Food Bank.

According to Kevin, "we like donating our Asian pears rather than throwing them away because it's something that people don't usually see or have access to."

It’s easy to leave excess fruit on the trees, but Naturekist Fruit Company chooses to harvest pears not for profit, but for their community. In 2024, they donated more than 100,000 pounds of fruit, and in 2025 they doubled that amount. We look forward to seeing what 2026 brings!

See photos from the 2025 donation to Columbia Gorge Food Bank