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Posts Tagged: small farms
Farmers invite visitors with new farm trail maps
The North Yuba Grown Farm Trail Map brochure encourages visitors to “Enjoy the Flavors of North Yuba … Some olive trees in the area are more than 100 years old, and are still producing excellent olive oils. The vines cultivated for wine are forced to dig deep for water and nutrients, resulting in smaller yields but expressing intense flavors.”
As Californians' interest in local food and farming increases, farmers in many parts of the state are finding ways to invite their urban and suburban neighbors out to the farms to taste, tour, play and learn. Three groups of growers, Capay Valley Grown in Yolo County, North Yuba Grown in Yuba and Butte, and Sacramento River Delta Grown in Sacramento County, have just published new farm trail maps that promote agritourism in their unique farming regions. The maps are part of a UC Small Farm Program project, funded by a CDFA Specialty Crop Block grant, called, “Building a Farm Trail: Developing effective agritourism associations to enhance rural tourism and promote specialty crops.”
The Sacramento River Delta group put on their Wine and Produce Passport Weekend in early August to debut their maps. North Yuba Grown is sponsoring the North Yuba Harvest Festival, to be held on September 27 and 28, and Capay Valley Grown is planning an Open Farm Day on October 5 this year. The groups of growers will have a chance to share their experiences with each other at a regional workshop in November, and with other California agritourism operators at a statewide agritourism summit to be held in April 2015.
The California Statewide Agritourism Summit, organized by the UC Small Farm Program as part of the same project, will bring together agritourism associations and others involved in California agritourism from throughout the state to learn from each other. The summit will include planning sessions for the continuation of statewide farm trail and agritourism association networking and skill-sharing. For more information, please click here or contact UC Small Farm Program Agritourism Coordinator Penny Leff, (530) 752-7779.
New food safety law could hurt small farmers
A behind-the-scenes battle is raging in the Senate over how to regulate small and organic growers without ruining them - and still protect consumers from contaminated food, according to a story published yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The crux of the legislation gives the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate how products are grown, stored, transported, inspected, traced from farm to table and recalled when needed.
"When you create microbial vacuums, they can be even more easily taken over by pathogenic organisms," Willey was quoted. "In organic agriculture, we depend tremendously on a cooperative effort with beneficial microorganisms. My whole soil fertility system is based on that. Actually, soil fertility planetwide is based on that."
The story noted that a UC Davis study last year by Shermain Hardesty and Yoko Kusunose found strict food safety regulations can put smaller growers at a disadvantage because their compliance costs are spread over fewer acres, the article reported. Hardesty said costs may be as high as $100 an acre.
Last summer, the House of Representatives passed stringent food safety legislation. Efforts to modify proposed rules to make compliance easier for small farms have been more successful in the Senate.
Ferd Hoefner, the policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the House bill would be a "complete disaster" for small farms.
If two versions of the law pass, Congress would work to merge them.
Small-scale producers may face compliance with tough laws.
Upscale magazine celebrates Hmong cuisine
A brief article in this month's issue of San Joaquin Magazine gave readers a glimpse of one of the more unusual research plantings at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center by UC Cooperative Extension small farm advisor Richard Molinar and his assistant Michael Yang.
The publication, which the title page claims "is found in affluent homes of Stockton, Lodi, Tracy, Ripon, Manteca, and Mountain House," said "evocatively-named" herbs Siberian motherwort, Vietnamese coriander, Black nightshade and Jewels of Opar and others are grown in the UC "garden" to celebrate Hmong culture.
"We want to enlighten people about these herbs," Molinar was quoted in the story.
Yang, an immigrant from Laos, explained that the preparation of chicken soup has a special significance in Hmong kitchens.
"We prepare a bundle of at least five different herbs, usually including such herbs as koj liab and pawj quaib, and simmer in chicken soup stock. It is a common practicie for Hmong women to drink this soup for the first month after they give birth," Yang was quoted.
San Joaquin Magazine.
UC ag research seasons Hmong cooking feature
A plot of Southeast Asian medicinal and culinary herbs at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center made an appearance in a Fresno Bee food story published yesterday.
The article centered on "Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America," a cookbook for Americans who wish to try the exotic cuisine introduced by Hmong immigrants. A large population of Hmong settled in the San Joaquin Valley after the Vietnam War. The Hmong collaborated with the CIA during the conflict and were promised protection in the event of a loss. They were ultimately relocated to enclaves in California, Minnesota and other areas.
Writer Joan Obra says some of the recipes in the new cookbook evolved from Southeast Asian traditions and others as Hmong families assimilated to American life.
The plot at Kearney, she noted, is the collaborative effort of UC Small Farm Program advisor Richard Molinar, based in Fresno, and his Hmong-descended research assistant Michael Yang.
Obra says the Hmong garden, which she recently toured, may be the only such research collection in the United States.
In fact, "(The plants) are not really common on California farms," the article quotes Molinar.
Michael Yang, left, and Richard Molinar, center, talk to a Southeast Asian farmer.
Small-scale dairy producer's chores punctuated with worry
There are perhaps no farmers who work harder than small-scale dairy operators. Consider that the cows must be milked twice a day, seven days a week, year-round - no matter the weather, illnesses, holidays or special occasions.Add to that the dismal economics of milk production, and you have a recipe for dispair.
Those are the feelings of Marc Duivenvoorden, who was recently profiled in the Redding Record-Searchlight. He owns a dairy on the border of Tehama and Shasta counties with 25 producing Jersey and Holstein cows.
Processors are required to pay farmers for milk using formulas set by state regulators and based off commodity prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. California processors are currently buying milk for $11 to $15 per hundredweight. With feed and overhead costs, Duivenvoorden spends at least $18 to produce a hundredweight, the story said.
Reporter Ryan Sabalow wrote in his article about the additional burden of managing dairy waste. He wrote that UC Cooperative Extension informed him that dairy farmers are required to have a waste-management plan to control dry manure and wastewater, and must complete an annual plan to safely contain nitrate- and ammonia-rich dairy waste byproducts.
Meanwhile, one of the UC programs that supports small scale farmers - the Small Farm Program - is slated for closure on Dec. 31. Over the weekend, the former director of the program, Desmond Jolly, wrote an essay for the Davis Enterprise suggesting that the decision is ill-advised.
The article, which is only available online to Enterprise subscribers, said the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources "took a giant step backwards" with the decision.
In a letter distributed Oct. 22, UC ANR vice president Dan Dooley noted that all advisors and specialists affiliated with the program have retained their positions and are "expected to continue their excellent work." Coordination of program functions will continue through workgroups, continuing conferences, and collaborations among individual advisors, specialists and faculty on research and outreach contracts and grants.
