For Fred Johnson, good food means one thing: farm-fresh produce.

It almost has a religious effect on people, he said.

Hes witnessed it first-hand. Johnson owns a 70-acre farm in Naselle, Wash., where he grows produce to supply local restaurants and people. Freds Homegrown Farm sells produce at the Astoria River Peoples Market every Thursday, and it runs a Community Supported Agriculture program, where anyone can purchase a membership and receive a box of fresh produce every week from June to October.

Johnson also hosts Farmstock, an annual regional festival that celebrates local food.

He wasnt always a farmer. The Oklahoma native started out in the kitchen: He spent 10 years in Atlanta as a chef. After a failed restaurant venture, he spent six months hiking the Rocky Mountains.

Once Id been in the West, that was it for the East Coast, he said. This is one of the best-tasting parts of the world Ive ever lived in.

Johnson spent some time in Arkansas, running the kitchen at a sustainable farm. Food was harvested just hours before he cooked. He could taste the difference in quality between the farms produce and the food most restaurants are supplied with.

It was the best food Id ever cooked with in my life. It just blew me away, he said. When youre cooking, youre trying to make all these vegetables beautiful and delicious, but you find out that someones been rigging the system the whole time.

Johnson envisioned a farm-to-table restaurant supplied with fresh food from local farms. He opened such a restaurant outside Seattle in the late 1990s. But the reality didnt match his vision.

There werent enough growers, he said. Passion sounds really trite, but it is passion. If you cant do what you love, it sucks.

In the end, he decided to become the farmer he was looking for.

Its a very romanticized idea, he said, except that I found it. When I saw the farm, I was like, This is it!

Johnson bought his 110-year-old farm in 2003. Since then, hes learned a lot.

When I was a chef, I was focused on always chopping everything into smaller pieces and frying at high temperatures or baking. Its all about control, he said. Ive really had to learn a lot about nurturing. I love tomatoes, but you cant demand a tomato plant to give you great tomatoes. You have to give the plant what it wants, and it will give you what you want. Its a process of giving, not demanding. Its not extraction.

Education and relocalizing the food system are things Johnson heartily stands behind.

Weve built ourselves into a very precarious situation with our food system, he said. Were graduating kids out of high school, and they cant feed themselves.

Freds Homegrown Farm hosts college internships, classroom field trips, and gardening and cooking classes. He is working on building a connection with the Naselle School District to use the farm as an educational resource for students.

Farmstock is presented by KMUN and runs Sept. 1 and 2. Workshops, cooking, exhibits, a farmers market, camping, music and late-night dancing are all on the menu. A locally-sourced sit-down dinner is one highlight; the limit is 100 people and tickets are $25 a plate in advance and $35 at the door. For more information about Farmstock, visit www.coastradio.org/farmstock

Freds Homegrown Farm is located at 201 S. Valley Road, Naselle, Wash. For more information, visit www.freds homegrownproduce.com

Rebecca Sedlak