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“A Day on the Farm”
by Lennie Roberts
Guests round out their Farm Tour experience at Pie Ranch, and discover happiness in the form of homemade pie — photo Cheri Parr/Coastsider.com |
Scrumptious berry pies, produced from local hand-ground wheat flour, and organically grown berries from the eponymous Pie Ranch, capped the recent “Outstanding in Their Fields, a Day on the Farm” tour sponsored by Committee for Green Foothills, with funding from the San Francisco and Peninsula Community Foundations and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
This special excursion grew out of CGF’s desire to educate Bay Area residents about the importance of preserving the heritage and sustainability of family farming on the San Mateo County coast. Some 100 participants visited four farms throughout the day and heard about challenges local growers face in sustaining their operations.
Switching from Flowers to Produce
Our first stop of the morning was at the farm fields at Daylight Farms in Half Moon Bay where we heard farmer John Muller talk about the evolution of his operation, from nearly three decades of primarily growing flowers into produce including a diverse variety of specialty pumpkins. He sells produce at local farmers’ markets as well as directly to restaurants.
The Threatened Globe Artichoke — and a Partnership with POST
Further south, near Pigeon Point Lighthouse, we heard Joe Muzzi of Bolsa Point Ranch talk about how market forces affect his choice of crops — fava beans, leeks, and Brussels sprouts — on 70 acres of land leased from Peninsula Open Space Trust. Joe worries about the fate of the Globe Artichoke, which is being supplanted by an annual variety that produces many more chokes per acre, but which are vastly inferior in quality. Will consumers continue to pay higher prices for Globes? He has largely switched out of this crop because of this competition. Paul Ringgold, Land Stewardship Director at POST described how agricultural lands are purchased and then leased back to farmers. This helps to make farming more sustainable because it reduces the development pressures and costs on the land.
Going Organic
From there, the buses traveled to the Cascade Ranch Historic Farm next to Año Nuevo State Reserve. Awaiting us was a bountiful spread featuring local specialties including Harley Farms goat cheese, Giusti Farms beets, Blue House Farm squash, carrots, tomatoes and more, served up by 4H kids at long tables set up in the former dairy barn/packing shed. Now operated as a non-profit, John Wade and Nando Muzzi described how Cascade Ranch is blending the rich history of 150 years of dairying and farming with modern production of Brussels sprouts, peas, and fava beans. Nando is planning to convert to organic crops as this growing market develops.
Portabellos and White Caps
Linda Tichenor, co-partner of the newly formed Pacific Coast Mushrooms, riveted everyone’s attention with her inspiring story of how 6 former employees of Money’s Mushrooms mortgaged their homes and reopened the mushroom operation after Money’s filed for bankruptcy. Some 120 employees are now growing and shipping portabello and white cap mushrooms to stores throughout California. Look for their label! Jim Cochran of Coastways Ranch and Swanton Berry Farms, shared the distinctive history of his organic niche in the competitive strawberry and other vine berry market.
Organically Grown Berries and Home Made Pies
After lunch, we stretch our legs and headed across the fields to Pie Ranch. Jered Lawson, co-director, described the Pie Ranch’s visionary approach of integrating farming with natural systems and how they involve inner city kids from the Mission District of San Francisco in understanding their relationship to food and to the land through experiencing a working farm.
Caring for the Land — Reducing Runoff and Erosion
As the buses traveled between farm-ers, two tour guides pointed out farm-ing practices seen along the way. Tim Frahm, of the San Mateo County Farm Bureau pointed out farmers on the South Coast who have been participating in initiatives to reduce erosion and runoff from their farm fields. Erin Tormey, founder of the Coastside Certified Farmer’s Market, pointed out certified organic farms that could be seen from the road and invited the tour participants to get involved in a grassroots campaign being launched by CGF and the Farmer's Market called Where’s the (local) Beets? (See the next article).
Preserving Our Farming Heritage
At the end of the day, participants reported they had a whole new under-standing of the economic struggles that farmers on the coast face along with some hope for the future see-ing new operations like Pacific Coast Mushrooms and Pie Ranch. Many also reported how this first hand experience impressed upon them the link between small farms’ viability and our decisions to “buy locally.” Although many people on the tour were long time CGF members, many were new, attracted to the topic. Several commented how important it was that groups like CGF and POST were doing the hard work to preserve a very important heritage of farming on the San Mateo Coast.
Published October 2006 in Green Footnotes.
Page last updated October 30, 2006.
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