2019 CSA: time to contemplate the future

It is with some sadness, but with hope in our hearts, that we share the suspension of the 2019 Oliview Farm CSA season. With minimal membership and a year full of changes and planning ahead, we felt that it would be a good year to put energy into preparation to become more sustainable in 2020 and beyond. For a long time we have struggled with membership: marketing is definitely a hurdle for us, and it's one we've not been able to surmount, as of yet. This seemed like a year we might turn inward to examine our next steps.

The changes we expect this year include significant work on fire-proofing, or at least decreasing the vegetative density on the farm, building up the kitchen and herb gardens (and protecting them from the chickens!), and taking more steps down the path of building the barn and commercial kitchen for increased production of olive oil and - potentially - class offerings, cooking demonstrations, and farm dinners. This last element, the barn, will take most of our attention and energy, not least in the form of working with the county to permit activities that don't fall under existing uses in code. They have been cooperative and encouraging so far, but it takes a LOT of time and energy.

We also hope to start developing connections with local food establishments which celebrate local food production. This could help us to even out our income and could increase the financial sustainability of Oliview Farm.

This is not goodbye, we hope: we are so incredibly grateful for our dedicated members - new and old! - and your interest in and enthusiasm for local food in general, and Oliview Farm in particular.

We will still have produce available, and certainly will have eggs (and, right now, baby chicks!). This will also be a year of experimentation, so if you’d like to see what’s growing out here, come on by! If you are interested in an heirloom chicken to grace your table, those will be available in August: we will sell you the live bird, and will provide the complimentary service of preparing that chicken for pickup from our freezer at your leisure.

Thank you for your trust in us; we want to be transparent in our actions and reasons, and respect your belief in us and the Farm mission. We love Oliview Farm and want it to flourish. Sometimes moving forward requires a small step back... or just a moment to stay still and think through what that next step looks like. We'll take that time this year and be ready to move forward with even more enthusiasm and energy in 2020!

We are still here, and still happy to see you, so please come by, check out the progress, oooh and aaah over the baby chicks, collect eggs with your kids, pet the cats, enjoy the birdsong, and drink a beer with us on the porch. There’s always lots to do, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

With great appreciation and many thanks,

Elizabeth and Pedro Betancourt

Where are all the Farmers?

Agriculture, though still the precious kernel of The American Dream, is becoming a rarer and rarer profession. As a very small farm, we are always looking for the bright side: there are too many stories of small farms - or any size farms, really - selling out and moving on to something easier and more financially sustainable. We especially cherish narratives addressing the myriad other elements part of making local agriculture work, in the hopes that it makes what we do more relateable, more understandable, and more sympathetic to the average person. 

The Sacramento Bee put out a most excellent article a couple of days ago, called "Farm to Forklift: As Sacramento hungers for local food, growers are looking elsewhere".

We see Sacramento, the self-dubbed "Farm to Fork Capital" of the nation, as an idealized market wherein the growers have nearly-perfect conditions (land is less expensive than many other parts of California , soil is alluvial, and the large customer base is very, very close), with local policies aligned such that farming is encouraged in just about every zone, and farm-based marketing exists throughout the region, in urban and rural neighborhoods alike. If things aren't good for farmers in the Sacramento market, things just aren't good for small agriculture, period.

As you'll read in the above story, things aren't good for farmers in the Sacramento market.

While the market is expanding by leaps and bounds, development continues to eat up agricultural lands: not because it is mandated, but because agriculture is hard.

1. It's hard to get up early and fix two irrigation line leaks before ensuring that the plants have enough water and the trees don't have too much. Water is expensive, irrigation pipe is expensive. Plants take time to nurture and grow, and the ground they're in is an opportunity cost for something else: a different crop (almonds?), or a different economic use (such as home development!).
2. It's hard to see an entire crop die because of some bad compost, or because of bird predation. We - as many small farms do - try to work synergistically and sustainably with nature. This is better for us, and better for the community of all, but is riskier. This means that partnering with customers who need greater dependability - such as restaurants - may be too much of a challenge, even given the higher potential for regular income.
3. Finally, and this is hard to say for all farmers, but undoubtedly true: it's hard to see produce so hard-won from the elements go for the relatively low rate at which Americans are accustomed to paying. While it is part of the US market's relatively higher wages than the rest of the world, in real terms we pay much, much less for food as a percent of income than any other place on earth. Real food - good food - should be affordable for everyone, and should be sustainable for the provider: the farmer. The policies that subsidize mega-corporations' corn, soy, wheat, sugar-beets, and many, many other "commodities" do so at the peril of Americans' health, and the health of the industry supplying the real, good food that strengthens bodies and minds.

Economics suggests that we act as rational beings, and do what is in our own best interest at every point in our lives. We can all state, in no uncertain terms, that the "rational being" concept is most certainly not true. Despite the odds, there are still farmers. We are still farming. We have customers who believe in the value of local agriculture, and understand that the peppers just really didn't do well this year and still persist with us. Cars slow down on the road outside our property: while we don't know for certain, we like to think that they're enjoying the beauty that small agriculture provides. Our family and friends metaphorically and physically eat up the eggs we bring when the hens are laying exponentially, even at $6/dozen, similar to the higher-end eggs at the store. We have neighbors who will help us. To weed. To weed! We know exceptional people.

However, what I see the Sacramento Bee article saying, and what I am saying in this post, is that all that we're doing is not enough. It's not enough for us to speak politely to our friends and neighbors - a fraction of the region's population - about the great work we're doing. It's not enough that consumers eat healthy food, but of food from Chile and Mexico. It's not enough that the federal government talks a good game about small farms and small businesses... but does very little to support them. We all need to do better at putting our money where our mouth is (maybe literally!) and acting on our values. New models, new ideas, and new partnerships are essential if we are going to continue to be able to feed ourselves as a society, in a way that respects place and recognizes current challenges. This is a matter of national security, of community health, and of local economies. But it's also a matter of pride and history: small holdings - subsistence agriculture - is part of the original American Dream, after all. Our thread in this tapestry is integral.

Here's to local food. Eat and drink up, hopefully with friends, and share the love and joy of community!

- Elizabeth

Berry Blast... or, in other words: The Great Negotiation

There's a lot to negotiate on a farm. You think you have something figured out, and then a chicken, or an insect, or the weather... or a spouse... comes in a messes with your vision! This is the story of the berry patch.

I grew up with boysenberries in my back yard. When dinner wasn't ready quite soon enough, Mom would send us out back to play, where we'd usually end up at the boysenberry fence finding berries that we'd missed the evening before. In fact, there are STILL boysenberries in this SAME spot in my childhood backyard.

If you have never had a boysenberry, you can't know what you're missing, but know that you're missing something major. They have the je ne sais quoi of a raspberry, and the luciousness of a just-ripe blueberry, as well as the deep sweetness of a blackberry - without the subtle, slightly off-putting rancidity that blackberries seem to carry. In any case, they're stellar. AND they're super-easy to propagate. They do so themselves, quite naturally, but you can easily plant a cane one fall, and the following spring have a boysenberry plant! 

Boysenberry plants, in their current/old location. They're just leafing out - which they do before blossoming! It's not an ideal time to move them, development-wise... however, it is a GREAT time to move them, human-relationship-wise! Note the slightly weedy-unkempt look of the bed... ahem.

SO: my dear mother supplied us with boysenberry plants when we moved up here. They're delicious, part of my childhood, and don't take up a ton of space. An easy "go", in my garden (notice the ownership, there... this becomes part of the challenge). So we - husband and I - agreed to plant them along the garden's north fence line. I promised to care for them: cut the year-old canes, pin up the new ones, weed, feed, etcetera. They're an exuberant plant, and did end up somewhat taking over that fence line. Not offensively so, but exuberantly. I was still caring for them, though, and Pedro - and CSA customers! - was reaping the spring/summer berry rewards... Great, right? 

No so great for Pedro. 

The plants were coming under the fence and showing up in the nearest garden bed... as well as growing wildly - exuberantly! - and creating nasty scratches on those brave enough to walk the pathway on the opposite side of the fence. Sigh. I still say: "small price to pay". However, it is not only my garden. Sigh. So they had to be moved.

The deal was that Pedro build a structure and I'd move the berries. It being Easter-time, this seems like a good opportunity to show the structure:

Boysenberry trellis in the making... looking oddly like three crosses in the middle of our property! 

Pedro put the trellis structures in last weekend, and then over the last few days I scraped the ground of weeds with our Valley Oak Tools wheeled hoe, a most amazing tool (the piles of weeds and topsoil will be composted). I then forked loose an 18-inch-wide strip on either side of the trellis for the actual berry plants. In the photo above, the chickens are helping to cultivate. This is very hard work, so I welcome any help I can get!

This morning I planted the west side of the trellis (the right side, in this photo). (Sorry: no photos. I was too hot and annoyed to get my camera.) This afternoon we'll be wiring it up with two long wires connecting across the length of the main posts, and then another few wires creating a kind of umbrella structure across the cross-posts, at the top. And then I'll dig more berry plants (sigh) and have a brand-new boysenberry trellis to enjoy! Yay! Hopefully we'll get a few berries this year, but I've composted the soil really well so that they'll settle in this year and we'll have a bumper crop next year! AND now I'll get to pick both sides, and not be hemmed in by the garden!

Here's to hard work, negotiations, and a better solution out of all of it!

- Elizabeth