28 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY december 12-18, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com managing water flow, which, during heavy rain years, can cause eroded soil to funnel water (and chemicals) into nearby farms if not properly controlled. It also means monitoring pesticide use by ensuring that wind conditions won’t carry chemicals onto other farmers’ properties. “I can’t risk my certification because of your negligence,” she says. Like Fuentes, Braga has dealt with soil bugs and soil diseases, in some cases so bad that they’ve lost entire fields, switching to conventional farming methods to kill the pest before transitioning back to organic. “We tried everything in the world to take care of [this one] soil bug, and nothing worked,” says Eric Morgan, vice president of environmental science and resources at Braga Farms. “I’m optimistic that we’ll figure it out. We need our farmland to be productive growing food. We prefer to do so organically, but in certain, weird cases, you can’t.” Most of the larger growers maintain both organic and conventional production to meet customer demand, Morgan explains. For example, Taylor Farms sells and markets organic produce under its Earthbound Farm brand, while also producing conventionally farmed goods. The same holds true for Braga, which markets its organic produce under the label Josie’s Organic. Morgan adds that the business often relies on its conventional crops when their organic operations are struggling. How deeply they commit to organic farming “is going to be reflected in what the consumers want,” says Morgan. “But it’s hard and it’s more risky, and potentially in certain times it has better rewards, too, in terms of markets. But not this year.” And there is no guarantee of getting a premium for organic. “We’re selling conventional and organic at the same price sometimes,” Chiapuzio says. The organic produce industry’s supply chain is a well-oiled machine that must balance production, handling and processing while meeting grocery retailers’ exact demands—delivering produce on time and in the specific condition they require. Smaller local organic growers, Chiapuzio notes, may have more flexibility in offering products that are less visually perfect. However, she adds, they may struggle entering into the wholesale market more than a larger farm. For Braga, despite their efforts, carts of produce sometimes never make it to store shelves. “Often, I’ll get at least seven rejection emails a day. We sent 100 cases to this or that grocery store—it didn’t make specs. So, it’s going to be dumped or donated,” she says, referring to their organic goods. Farm to farm, across commodities, every year is different. Wine grapes, a top commodity in Monterey County, operate in a unique space both in the marketplace and ecologically. Wine grapes are a permanent crop, harvested once a year rather than in cycles, typically starting in the late summer. While climate challenges have affected other crops in recent years following the volatile swings between heavier rains and long, hot summers, the conditions in Monterey County have actually benefited wine grapes, boosting them to the No. 5 spot among top-valued commodities in 2023, up from No. 7 in 2022. In terms of organic farming, only a small portion of the county’s 40,200 acres of wine grapes are certified organic—just 795 acres, according to the crop report. Wine grapes may be easier to farm organically, says Greg Hill, co-founder of Tira Nanza Wines in Carmel Valley, who first became interested in growing them after a family friend suggested it was relatively straightforward to do so organically. Having spent several years farming wine grapes before purchasing the winery with his family in 2020, Hill believes the local climate is uniquely conducive to organic grape farming, especially when it comes to managing certain pests. “It would be possible some years to get through an entire vintage without spraying anything; you would have a mildew-free crop here, where that’s just not the case for a lot of [crops],” Hill says. “If you’re growing berries in Watsonville and you didn’t spray at all, you’re going to lose most of your crop. Even if you’re growing grapes closer to the coast or in the Salinas Valley where the fog is so present, if you don’t spray anything you’re going to lose a lot of your crop to mildew.” There is also a stronger value proposition compared to other commodities. Producers have more flexibility in pricing wine, as consumers often view it as a specialty item and are willing to pay a greater premium, more than for staples like organic lettuce. Through the California Department of Food and Agriculture, 75 percent of Tira Nanza’s certification costs are reimbursed. Hill believes that if you’re producing something better, the final product will speak for itself, allowing the farmer to focus less on yields. Even still, he adds they’ll get very comparable yields at their vineyard to other local, smaller nonorganic farms. “I truly believe that we can produce something better by being organic,” Hill says. Tira Nanza has roughly 30 acres of vineyard, as well as 620 acres of cattle ranch. Some of their biggest pests are gophers, mites during dusty seasons, and ground squirrels which eat the baby vines close to the ground. All of which they are trying to control by using birds of prey—Cooper’s hawks, owls, redtailed hawks and golden eagles—as a natural form of pest control. Not using pesticides, he adds, also protects the birds from being poisoned. This can be packaged into the marketing and aesthetics that come along with the wine-making experience. “Especially in the wine business, where it’s all tours and tastings and stuff, anybody can say, ‘Yeah, we farm organically.’ But if you don’t have any certification, there’s no way for people to distinguish whether you’re completely making it up, or whether it’s real,” Hill says. Still, wine grapes are not immune. For example, vine mealybug spread across the state in 2007, including in Monterey County. It is hard to control once established. As Jay Sughroue, area manager of BioSafe Systems, a biopesticide, notes: “Sometimes, there’s no silver bullet approach.” For many farmers, both organic and conventional, the relationship between soil health, plant health, and pest and disease management is becoming better understood. Although organic farming still faces challenges, the demand for products that rely on more holistic farming practices is exploding. “[Demand] for regenerative agriculture is proof that society wants the food system to progress,” Thaddeus Barsotti, director of fresh supply chain innovation at fieldTRUE, said at the Organic Growers Summit. “The elephant in the room is we need to rethink how the food system works from a very high level. There is not a good way to get that money to the people who are doing those practices. The challenge we have is: How do we take that economic power and move it to the right places?” Today, CDFA is working to define regenerative agriculture, a term which has already begun showing up in the marketplace without a uniform understanding of what the term means, drawing from the history of organic farming to create a legitimate term that holds value. At Braga Farms, Morgan shared at the summit that despite the struggle to keep up with organic on the production side, Walmart has reached out to do Project Gigaton, a project which in part, works to encourage farmers to adopt practices that reduce emissions, improve soil health, and enhance water quality. “This,” Morgan said, “is where we’re going.” Daniel Dreifuss On a sunny day in Carmel Valley, farmer Tommy Pham sifts through rows of kale at Earthbound Farm, a pioneer of the organic movement in the 1980s and now part of Taylor Farms. “I truly believe that we can produce something better by being organic.”
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