Small farms Archives - Page 5 of 7 - California Agriculture News Today

A comparison: How California farms stack-up around the country

By Don Curlee; the Porterville Recorder

Counting the ways farming in California differs from farming in the rest of the country might result in some surprises, especially for proud Californians.

To begin with, farms in California are about 25 percent smaller on average than those in the rest of the country. The contrast between farming here and farming there is even more remarkable when you consider that the state’s smaller farms outpace those in the rest of the country by producing almost five times the dollar amount per acre. Of course, that means farmers in the Golden State receive more income than those elsewhere.

These characteristics of the country’s farm profile come from information collected in the 2012 Census of Agriculture, the latest every-five-years exercise conducted by the federal government. Comparing data from the most recent census with that from the 2007 effort reveals some memorable results.

Some of those results have been compiled by Emma Knoesen, a research associate and Rachael Goodhue, a professor of Agricultural Resource Economics (ARE) at the University of California, Davis. Their report was published in the May/June issue of Update, published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at Davis.

In the conclusion of their report they say: “(The census) indicates that California agriculture remains distinct from U. S. agriculture as a whole, although in both cases farms continue to grow larger in both acreage and market value of production.”

One of the report’s tables shows that almost a quarter of California farms are between one and nine acres, compared to only 11 percent of farms at that size elsewhere in the country. Another quarter of California farms are between 10 and 49 acres, not that different from the rest of the country, and 17 percent fall into that 50 to 179- acre bracket, opposed to 30 percent of farms that are outside the state.

A very telling statistic puts the number of California farms with 2,000 acres or more at 2,434, while the number of farms in the other 49 states with 2,000 acres or more is more than 82,000. Seems that fly-over country has some pretty big spreads, and it isn’t puny backyards where Texans raise their cattle.

Perhaps even more telling is the effect of California’s higher value crops, the vegetables, fruits and specialty commodities. The report says: “The average market value of production per acre of farmland in California was $1,667, compared to $289 in the United States as a whole.”

On average, California farms produced a market value of $547,510, about three times that of other U.S. farms, which averaged $187,097.

Production of high-value fruit and vegetable crops continued in California at about the same pace and in about the same places as reported in the 2007 census. Tree and vine crops dominated the Central Valley counties, and vegetables were the commodities of choice in coastal areas and in the Imperial Valley.

Imperial County registered a strong increase from 2007 to 2012 in the amount of land used to grow vegetables, from less than 69,000 acres in the earlier census to nearly 106,000 acres in 2012. The number of farms growing vegetables there increased as well, from 86 to 105.

Even though the number of California farms decreased from 2007 to 2012, the total market value of their production increased by a little more than 25 percent.

No question, farming is a winner in California and a significant contributor to the state’s economy. If overzealous legislators and social and environmental purists can control themselves enough to leave it alone the state’s different-but-better agriculture can continue to prosper and continue to help overcome world hunger.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:32-07:00August 13th, 2014|

EIR Approved to Clear Brush From Salinas River

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

Norm Groot, Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director, commented recently on the completion of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that allows the Salinas River to be unclogged of brush and other plant material. “It’s been a over a three-year process to get the environmental impact report completed and certified, and the Board of Supervisors took action to certify it, so that is the first big step in moving forward to getting the resource agencies to issue permits.

Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director, Norm Groot.

“It’s not perfect at this point, but we feel it’s a good start, and maybe as a short-term project moving into some sort of long-term river management project. Ultimately, this could be a first good step,” said Groot.

“We’re hoping that now that we have this certified EIR, the permits for the Nature Conservancy projects will go forward, and they will be able to hopefully start their maintenance work in October of this fall and complete that work before it starts raining—and we are hoping for rain. It also clears the way for other landowners, or as we’re calling them, River Management Units, to start working on filing for applications and moving their individual projects forward, hopefully, for next year.”

Groot said, This is all in case of flooding that could result from winter rains and cause a lot of damage to the adjacent fields.”

“It’s due to concerns about food safety and flooded fields being out of production for a lot longer than they were during the last floods in 1995 and 1998,” said Groot. “Things have changed considerably since then, and we do have the potential for having a pretty epic flood here.

“So we’re a little concerned that if we don’t get something done in the riverbed this year and next year, some much larger problems could impact the economy as well as the industry,” said Groot.

Featured Photo credit: Salinas River, San Ardo Oilfield View, Wikipedia.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:11-07:00August 4th, 2014|

Navy Vet Shows Children the Value of Work and Education Through Farming

Surrounded by crime, inequality and a lack of opportunity is a quarter-acre farm in East Oakland, California. U.S. Navy veteran and Oakland native Kelly Carlisle is trying to change all that by inspiring a young group of local children through farming.

Growing up in East Oakland, Carlisle said she remembers feeling hopeless at a young age.

“At 9 years old there’s nothing to do, there’s nowhere to go, no program that my family can afford, or for me to engage in,” Carlisle said. “It was hard, you couldn’t go outside, we had a one-block radius that we can play in and I remember feeling and asking, what I am going to be and where I’m going to go?”

The former Navy Operation Specialist said she wants to be able to give “her kids” a chance at working towards a better future. Back in early 2010, Carlisle remembers hearing news reports about Oakland’s high crime rate, childhood obesity, school dropout rates and teen prostitution.

“My initial reaction was, thank God I don’t live there. Then the more I thought about it and the fact that I have a young child, it occurred to me that there’s one population that has no choice to decide where they live or what their community looks and feels like and that’s young people,” she said.

As a result, Carlisle founded Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project, a nonprofit urban farm that focuses on serving at-risk youth from kindergarten to 8th grade, and their families. She launched Acta Non Verba to teach children how to invest in themselves and ultimately invest in their communities.

Children plant, harvest and sell produce and 100 percent of those proceeds go to savings accounts to pay for their education.

At first it was a lot of raised eyebrows and challenging to get others on board with the idea, she said. “They weren’t use to talk about farming in Oakland. But eventually people were really happy with the idea to have an urban farm in their neighborhood,” she said.

One of the ongoing challenges is to get people engaged, she said. “This is our third year of camp, fourth of growing and it’s still a challenge,” she said.

Last week, President Obama honored the work Carlisle is doing in Oakland at an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room at the White House. “Thanks to Kelly these boys and girls are not only learning the value of hard work at an early age, they’re changing how they think about themselves and opening their minds to what’s possible in their lives,” the president said.

Carlisle doesn’t come from a family of farmers but from a military family. Her father and grandfather both served in the military. She joined the Navy in 2001 shortly before 9/11 and was stationed aboard the USS Essex. She left active duty in 2005 and her transition was difficult, she said. She landed a corporate job and got married. But in 2009, she had to join the U.S. Navy Reserve after she ended up unemployed during the economic downturn. She left the Reserve in 2013.

Her first farming or growing experience was with a lemon tree she planted at home and that’s when she felt in love with growing, she said. Carlisle took a master gardeners course and it was there that she ran into the Farmer Veteran Coalition, a veteran outreach organization offering veteran employment and farm education programs. Carlisle is a recipient of the organization’s fellowship fund was instrumental in giving resources to Carlisle to become not only a farmer but a person with a mission to change her community.

“Most of the children here think that food comes from the grocery store. We’re giving the kids the whole experience, from seed to table, from raw to sandwich,” she said.

East Oakland is considered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture a food desert, where liquor stores and fast food restaurants outnumber supermarkets.

The City of Oakland Parks and Recreation leases the land to Acta Non Verba. The farm has cultivated beds of fruits and vegetables, including strawberries, green beans, cabbage, fava beans, sun flowers and tomatoes. It has also built a beehive.

“We like to work with kids because the excitement of seeing these seeds turn into actual fruit is magical for them and they don’t see it coming. The kids go wild,” she said.

For Carlisle, farming and providing a better future for these kids has become her life’s work. Carlisle said her dream for the farm is that children learn how to nurture the earth and themselves.

“As Oaklanders, I want them to be forward thinking about their future. I want them to remember this experience as something that at least gave them a window into something better and a different way to live,” she said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:12-07:00August 1st, 2014|

Harlan Ranch Pushes Citrus Trees Due to No Water

Califonia Citrus Mutual Holds Press Conference at Harlan Ranch to Show Catastrophe

Kevin Severns, a citrus grower and manager of Orange Cove – Sanger Citrus Association and chairman of California Citrus Mutual, spoke to the crowd gathered at third-generation, family-owned Harlan Ranch, Clovis, CA, TODAY, “This is what a zero allocation looks like, folks, this is what zero allocation looks like.”

“Harlan Ranch and Orange Cove-Sanger Citrus have a long history together. Next year we will receive our lowest-ever deliveries from Harlan Ranch simply because of the number of trees are being pushed. Why are they being pushed? No water.

“This is an inexcusable situation and something we are desperate to do something about. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the end of the story. We can do something about this, and that’s what this is all about–to bring attention to both the plight and what can be done about it,” said Severns.

“The packing house that I manage is about 25 miles, as the crow flies, from where I’m standing, and the fruit from this ranch is delivered there along with fruit from the other growers who also own the packing house. It’s a cooperative of family farmers. We employ about 100 people directly in our packing house, and another 200 to 250 in the crews that pick, harvest and prune,” Severns said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:13-07:00July 30th, 2014|

Farmers Markets Try to Weather the Drought

Source: Ching Lee; Ag Alert

With summer harvest in full swing and farmers markets brimming with the usual variety of produce, the effects of the drought may not be immediately apparent to shoppers–but farmers who work those markets tell a different story.

Kern County farmer Greg Tesch, who works five farmers markets in his region and runs three of them, relies entirely on surface water to farm more than 70 different fruits, vegetables, herbs and cut flowers. Tesch said he’s not selling his usual array of products this year.

He said he couldn’t plant strawberries last fall because the canal that feeds his farm went dry in August. Half his cherry trees did not survive, so he had fewer cherries to sell. And because he did not have water deliveries until mid-March, he was unable to plant certain crops on time, missing an important early-season niche.

“We’re typically able to sell things that are slightly out of season,” he said. “The water wasn’t available, so we had to plant when a lot of other people planted, and so there is less demand for our product at farmers markets, as well as wholesale.”

He said the late start also forced him to lower his prices because he now faces “a glut of produce all at one time” and “competing against stores in the wrong time of year.”

Looking ahead, Tesch said he plans to scale back his vegetable production and plant more deep-rooted crops, most likely cherries on drought-tolerant rootstocks. He said he wants to grow crops that mature in the spring, which he acknowledged will affect his farmers-market business.

Some farmers who have better access to water were not necessarily spared from impacts of the drought. In San Diego County, Eli Hofshi, who uses mainly municipal water for irrigation, said he has stopped watering his winter vegetables and will not harvest them because his water bills have become unaffordable.

He said while certain crops such as tomatoes, squash and trees can handle some water stress, vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts become too bitter if not irrigated. In hindsight, he said he should not have planted the winter vegetables.

“We just didn’t realize it was going to be this costly,” he said. “We planted them last fall and they’ve just now started to produce. So it was a bad mistake. It’s been a double loss by putting the water in, doing the labor.”

With the loss of product, Hofshi said he’s had to buy from other farmers to fill in at his farm stand, but he’s not able to do that at the farmers market, where he’s taking a loss, despite raising prices.

“People are definitely balking at the prices right now,” he said. “They don’t like to pay (more). But we absolutely had to do it, with the cost of water and not to mention we’ve had a minimum-wage increase.”

Fresno County blueberry farmer Kim Sorensen, whose season ended earlier this month, said she also had to raise prices this year—by about 8 percent—to cover some of her higher production costs from having to pump water during the winter. While her customers noticed the price increase, she said most of them understood.

“We lost a little business I think, but not a tremendous amount just because most of what we do is in more affluent areas,” she said.

Farms in other parts of the state where there’s more water also reported increased production costs, with some having to reduce their production or not grow more thirsty crops in order to save water.

San Joaquin County farmer Beatriz Jimenez said she didn’t grow as much okra, eggplant and peppers. Cesar Cuebas, who works for Perry’s Garden Highway Gardens in Sacramento County, said the farm cut at least 30 percent of its production of crops such as sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and watermelon. And El Dorado County farmer Patrick Hoover said he restricted water on some of his crops, such as apples, and may have smaller fruit this year.

“The drought is not just about water,” said Dan Best, general counsel of the California Federation of Certified Farmers Markets, noting that the warm winter did not give trees such as cherries enough chill hours to set fruit, leaving many growers with a very small crop or nothing to sell.

But for the most part, farmers-market managers reported little change in the amount and variety of products selling at their markets, and said any price increases have been minimal.

Joe Schirmer, who grows a variety of vegetables in Santa Cruz County, said warm, sunny winter weather increased patron attendance at farmers markets, which was good for business. With access to adequate groundwater supplies, he said he was able to extend his growing season during the winter.

“Things really were productive in the wintertime, so we actually did pretty well because of the drought,” he said.

And while having to irrigate through the winter definitely increased his costs, he said the extra production and sales probably resulted in a net gain for his farm.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:14-07:00July 23rd, 2014|

UC President Janet Napolitano Presents Food Initiative Plan to CDFA

University of California President Janet Napolitano today (July 1) presented the university’s plans for a comprehensive food initiative to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.

The UC Global Food Initiative is intended to marshal the university’s resources — including curriculum and world-class research, student efforts and operational efforts in place across the university’s 10 campuses — to address global challenges related to food.

“This initiative grows out of a commitment made by all 10 UC campus chancellors and myself,” Napolitano said. “It is a commitment to work collectively to put a greater emphasis on what UC can do as a public research university, in one of the most robust agricultural regions in the world, to take on one of the world’s most pressing issues.”

The food initiative will build on UC’s tradition of innovative agricultural research to support farmers and ranchers. Future efforts will build on work already begun by UC’s 10 campuses and its Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) to address internal and external issues with a variety of approaches.

UC research, for example, taught Californians how to remove salts from the alkali soils in the Central Valley, transforming that barren landscape into one of the world’s most productive farming regions, Napolitano noted in her presentation to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.

Today, the World Food Center at UC Davis stands with 26 other centers dedicated to food and agriculture on that campus; students and faculty at UC Santa Cruz are transforming the field of agroecology; and the Berkeley Food Institute is studying the relationship between pest control, conservation and food safety on Central Coast farms. The cutting-edge Healthy Campus Initiative at UCLA taps all members of the campus community.

The initiative is not limited to seeking any single solution or set of solutions to the myriad food issues confronting the world, Napolitano said.

“The idea,” she said, “is to provide the intellectual and technical firepower, as well as the operational examples needed for communities in California and around the world to find pathways to a sustainable food future.”

In describing the building blocks for the initiative, Napolitano noted that the university’s agricultural outreach and public service programs — in every California county and more than 100 nations — bring UC resources to individuals and communities to help them access safe, affordable and nutritious food while sustaining scarce natural resources.

The university’s work also will help inform and drive policy discussions from the local to the international levels, and expand partnerships with government agencies such as the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

“This initiative shows great vision and leadership from President Napolitano and the University of California,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross, “Climate change and population growth will greatly strain our ability to provide healthy food to people here and around the world.

“President Napolitano’s proposal to leverage the strategic assets of the entire UC organization makes it a valuable partner in addressing the significant challenges and opportunities for our production agriculture and food system.”

Emphasizing that student engagement is key, Napolitano announced, as one of her first actions, the funding of three $2,500 President’s Global Food Initiative Student Fellowships to be awarded on each campus to undergraduate or graduate students. The fellowships will fund student research projects or internships.

Among other early efforts to be undertaken as part of the initiative are the following:

Internally, campuses will heighten their collective purchasing power and dining practices to encourage sustainable farming practices, and model healthy eating and zero food waste; food pantries and farmers markets that exist on some campuses will be spread to all 10. Partnerships with K-12 school districts to enhance leveraging procurement for these purposes also will be explored.
Food issues will be integrated into more undergraduate and graduate courses, catalogues of food-related courses will be developed, and demonstration gardens will be made available on each campus to increase opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning.
Data mining of existing information will be deployed to help develop insights and action plans for California agriculture and responses to climate change.

New policies will be enacted to allow small growers to serve as suppliers for UC campuses.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:20-07:00July 1st, 2014|

Cottage Food Industry on Growth Trend in California

A little more than a year ago, a California law went into effect that gave small farmers and even home gardeners a new opportunity to sell value-added products.

Shermain Hardesty

The California Homemade Food Act permits individuals to produce certain types of cottage food in home kitchens to sell in limited quantities to the public.

That sounds simple, but like most laws, there are plenty of caveats. The legislation has stipulations about the types of foods allowable, registration, permits and labeling requirements.

UC Cooperative Extension has been helping farmers and home gardeners who produce fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, and honey take advantage of the new opportunity at workshops around the state, reported the Stockton Record.

Shermain Hardesty, UC Small Farm Program extension economist, is coordinating the project. Hardesty thinks that marketing may be the hardest part of creating a successful cottage food businesses for many farmers and other entrepreneurs.

At the workshops, Hardesty teaches the basic “Four P’s” of marketing: product, place, price and promotion.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:22-07:00June 25th, 2014|

Organic Versus Conventional Divide Not Helping Agriculture

By Todd Fitchette; Farm Press Blog

I’m sure there’s much more to this than meets the eye – there always is. To the not-so-casual observer, the recent petition by 20 organic farm and consumer groups related to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) seems a bit hypocritical.

PR Newswire is reporting that 20 groups petitioned USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack “to protect the authority and permanence of the NOSB,” whatever that means.

Folks are apparently upset that the NOSB, created by Congress in the 1990 farm bill, does not have dictatorial control over organic policy and federal law. Instead, its stated purpose is to advise the USDA. Good enough.

Apparently it’s not.

Organic proponents apparently want their own control of all things organic, absent the kind of oversight conventional farming has.

Two of the petitioners include the Center for Food Safety and “Beyond Pesticides.” While the center’s name sounds sublime enough, the other group’s politics are front and center in the title.

It would seem that this petition is less about an egregious act committed by the USDA and more about fear mongering.

Can’t we all just grow up and have an adult conversation about food policy in America without the fifth-grade accusations?

Maybe America’s agricultural self-sufficiency breeds these kinds of ad hominem attacks that paint conventional farmers as evil and organic farmers as lazy. Isn’t there room at the dinner table for everyone, regardless of their chosen diet and the amount of money they choose to pay for produce?

The organic food industry certainly has a place in America’s free market. If people value what organic growers produce, they’ll buy it, plain and simple.

If folks choose to buy produce and meat produced conventionally, after it has been subjected to government oversight and inspection, then maybe I’m not going to worry so much about the chemicals used to kill pests in the California-grown tomatoes that become my bottle of catsup.

What does it matter if my Iowa-grown corn has a Bt gene in it that helps resist pests? Does it taste good and can I get it for a reasonable price?

American agriculture has too few people involved in it anymore for groups to balkanize each other and argue over issues that are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Right now, nearly a million acres of farmland in California is fallow since the water which could have been used to irrigate a portion of that land was allowed unobstructed access to the Pacific Ocean during a severe drought. This happened since agriculture is not as politically effective as its antagonists. It’s really that simple.

Maybe it’s time for a little national pride in the fact we can produce 100 percent of our food needs in this country since we are blessed with the soil and climate and the technology to achieve it.

It sure beats the alternative of having to import much of our food supply because we can’t grow it ourselves.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:35:22-07:00June 24th, 2014|

Farming in Drought: Tomato Growers Embrace the Heat

By Sarah Trent; Pacific Coast Farmers’ Markets Association

In late May, UC Davis published a drought impact report projecting 410,000 acres of farmland left fallow, 14,500 jobs lost, and a $1.7 billion hit to our state’s agricultural economy.

Since tomatoes can be a water-intensive crop, I expected that when I set out to ask farmers about the drought’s effect on their tomatoes, I would hear they were planting less, anticipating smaller yields, making changes to their seed orders for next year, and worrying about the future of their farms.

The truth?

“To be honest,” said Phil Rhodes of Country Rhodes Family Farm in Visalia, “this is our best year ever.”

Like many farmers, Rhodes is very concerned about water — the water level in his well has dropped about a foot a year since the 1990s, to the point where he must invest upwards of $50,000 to drill it deeper in the next year — but for now, the heat accompanying the drought has been a boon to his tomato crop, which came in early and strong. Rhodes brought his first tomatoes to farmers’ markets in mid-May, several weeks earlier than normal.

As long as he has water in his well, Rhodes’ farm is not impacted by water rationing by local or federal water districts. Farmers who rely on water from those sources are facing more dire circumstances: Rhodes admits that in the southern Central Valley region where his farm is located, he sees other farmers leaving fields unplanted.

Those unplanted fields may mean that vegetable farmers who have ground water access, farm in areas less impacted by the drought, or whose infrastructure, climate, and soil conditions allow for less water usage will see increased demand for their crops. So while the drought has substantial implications for California agriculture on the whole, farmers like Rhodes are doing well in spite or even because of it.

Ron Enos, who owns certified organic Enos Family Farms in Brentwood, also expects he’ll have a good year with his tomatoes. In his region, many of his neighbors are larger-scale farms growing processing tomatoes, which means that demand for his fresh tomatoes is high.

While the high-heat conditions accompanying the drought spelled trouble for his winter and spring vegetables (which do best in cooler conditions), the hot dry summer bodes well for his summer crops.

He also uses less water than many farmers in his region: over the last few years, Enos has transitioned to using a black plastic mulch in combination with drip irrigation for many of his crops, which cut his water usage to about 30 percent of what he needed before.

Another method for using less water on fruiting crops like tomatoes and squash is dry farming: a method of cutting irrigation early in a plant’s life and forcing it to rely only on existing soil moisture. Some vegetable varieties do especially well in these conditions, which result in smaller, more flavorful fruit.

While it’s near impossible to dry farm in the extreme climate of the Central Valley, it works well in coastal regions where the soil retains some moisture through the summer.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:35:24-07:00June 19th, 2014|

From Service to Harvest – Military Veteran Deploys Aquaponics on the Farm

By: Blair Anthony Robertson; Sacramento Bee

Farming wasn’t Vonita Murray’s first choice, but after making a drastic career change, the 38-year-old Navy Veteran, former office manager and longtime fitness enthusiastic now believes digging in the dirt, growing food and being her own boss may be the dream job she has always wanted.

The transition to farming for Murray, 38, happened gradually over the past several years. She eventually took stock of her life, sized up her talents, sharpened the focus on her dreams and decided she was no longer cut out for a desk job.

For several years, Murray had been an office manager and a CAD, or computer-assisted design, technician for an architecture firm. Much of her work focused on remodeling floor plans for a major fast food chain’s Northern California stores. But when the economic downturn hit the architecture and design industry, Murray got laid off. She saw it as a chance to make a change in her life.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said.

Using a $5,000 grant she received from the Davis-based Farmer Veteran Coalition, Murray bought some basic farm equipment and managed to launch her new career. She also enrolled in the first class of the California Farm Academy, a six-month farming course run by the Center for Land-based Learning in Winters.

Murray knows it will take hard work and several years before she can make a comfortable living as a farmer. But she has a long-term plan and says farming – including many 12-hour days – is exactly the lifestyle she was seeking.

“I’ve never been so tired, so broke and so happy,” she said with a laugh. “For the first time in my life, I have worth and a purpose. What I do has value in people’s lives.”

More and more veterans are turning to farming to connect in a similar way. “We’re all a family and we all try to help each other succeed,” Murray said.

When Michael O’Gorman founded the Farmer Veteran Coalition in 2009, he searched throughout the U.S. and found just nine veterans interested in going into farming. By the end of that year, the number was up to 30. These days, O’Gorman and his group have helped 3,000 veterans transition into farming.

“What’s really attracting veterans to agriculture is it offers a sense of purpose and a sense of mission,” said O’Gorman, who has farmed for 40 years. “It’s about feeding their country, offering food security and a better diet.”

O’Gorman is seeing more women get into farming and says Murray is a great role model.

“Vonita is dynamic, creative, energetic and smart. Whatever she does, she will do it well and take it places,” he said. “She’s a growing phenomenon. About 15 percent of those who serve in the military are women and that’s about the same percentage we hear from.

More and more women are going into agriculture. The military and farming are both male-dominated. The women who have taken on both of them just seem like a really exceptional group.”

Those who encounter Murray are often impressed by her energy and her holistic, lead-by-example approach to farming. Not only does she want to grow good food, she sees the work she does as a way to help people be healthy.

Indeed, Murray’s physical presence says plenty. Though she no longer trains as a bodybuilder, she remains noticeably lean and muscular. Her workouts these days focus on functional training and she is a big advocate of Crossfit, which combines classic weightlifting with mobility exercises.

“I’m doing all this because I want to get people healthy,” said Murray, noting that she hopes to someday build an obstacle course on the property so people can use it to work out.

She also has a penchant for unorthodox and innovative approaches to growing food. Standing on a portion of the land she leases in rural Elverta next to the renowned Sterling Caviar facility, Murray watches water stream past. It’s runoff from the tanks where sturgeon are raised for their prized caviar. It’s also the key to what she will grow on her new “farm” site.

Murray essentially harnesses the water, 3 million gallons a day and loaded with nutrients, to create an innovative style of growing food called aquaponics, which combines modern hydroponics with forward-thinking environmental awareness.

The water goes through a settling pond to separate solids from liquids, travels through a moat and into small ponds where Murray is growing produce she sells to restaurants and to a growing number of customers at the Saturday farmers market in Oak Park.

The outgoing and optimistic Murray has put some of her energy into tapping resources that can help get her going in farming. She obtained a $35,000 low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Murray, whose produce operation is going to specialize in watercress, says she would have been at a loss as to how to proceed as a farmer without the education she got at the California Farm Academy. The program costs about $2,600 and various grants subsidize the tuition, according to Dawnie Andrak, director of development for the Center of Land-Based Learning.

Those who enroll run the gamut of age and work background. About 20 students graduate each year. To make it a real-world experience, they write a business plan and present it to a panel composed of people from the banking, business and farm community.

“There are more women like Vonita getting into farming,” Andrak said. “You will not find someone more dedicated and more clear about what it is she wants to do. She is certainly not one to give up.”

Jennifer Taylor, the director of the Farm Academy, is herself an example of a woman who made the career leap into farming. She was a research biologist who had no idea until well after college that a life in agriculture might appeal to her. She landed a four-month internship on a farm, was given four calves and eventually rented a barn and started dairy farming.

“If you have no connection to agriculture, it’s very difficult to imagine yourself doing it, Taylor said. “It’s a way many people want to live, an opportunity to be your own boss, work outside with your hands and be your own boss.”

But can you make a living?

“That depends,” said Taylor, noting that one young farmer from the program now sells to about 50 Bay Area restaurants and nets about $75,000 a year.

Back in Elverta, Murray is busy tending her crops and her chickens. She’s not making a profit yet, but she knows it takes time. More than anything, she loves the work, the lifestyle and the mission. She sometimes feels the stress of having debt and not knowing whether her crops will thrive.

But her farm is called Thrive Acres for a reason.

“You have to keep dreaming,” she said with a smile. “This is just the beginning.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:35:25-07:00June 17th, 2014|