Peter Hoyt 2010

Peter has spent most of his adult life building and strengthening community. As part of the “back to the land” movement of the early seventies, he moved to Tennessee with his wife Carol, to help found The Farm, a spiritual community that grew to over 1500 people. Twin careers in the community included designing and helping to construct energy efficient passive solar homes and public buildings, while also working as art director for the community based book publishing company. Titles include a series of vegetarian cookbooks featuring tofu, tempeh and other soy foods, and several “how to” books on community skills including midwifery.

After moving his family to the Rogue Valley twenty years ago, Peter has continued his work in energy efficient housing, sustainable energy and appropriate village technology. Working as a design consultant several years ago for a firm manufacturing radiation detection equipment led to an opportunity to design and build a hydrophone buoy to be placed in the waters west of Maui, Hawaii. This gives voice to the Grey Whales that winter there, and can be accessed worldwide on the internet at whalesong.net

After two and a half years as a volunteer on the coop’s Outreach Committee, Peter was elected to serve on our board of directors. He feels that continuing to encourage production and consumption of locally grown organic food is one of the most important aspects of building a strong, sustainable community economy.