The producers

More often than not we eat our meals without thinking twice about the people behind the plate. Here’s a brief look into the lives of three local food producers: their opinions on farming, the challenges they endure, and what fuels their agricultural motivation.

 
The Vegetable Patch

Doreen and Doug Lum, owners of the Vegetable Patch, have been actively farming in the Suisun Valley for the last 30 years. Their two daughters, Kristy and Kelly, grew up working on the farm. In fact, Doug is a third-generation farmer; his brother, Derrick, and their father, Charlie, are both still farming in Suisun Valley as well.

    Driving up the Vegetable Patch’s enormous gravel driveway to the quaint, rustic produce market on Rockville Road, lush fields of crops grow not more than 20 feet away from the check stand. Doreen Lum clarifies that not all produce sold at their stand is grown right on the grounds. “A few producers out here support each other and trade products,” she says. However, more than 20 different crops are grown on-site, including squash, tomatoes, collard greens and nectarines.

    Although the Vegetable Patch’s spectacular selection of local fruits, vegetables, nuts, jams, vinegars, bread and honey are wonderful for shoppers, it isn’t all fun and games for Doreen and Doug. Doreen compares the produce they raise to ice cubes melting in the sun. “There’s a time limit when you need to sell it,” she says, “especially when you don’t have any refrigeration.” A compost bucket of retired produce can frequently be found hiding somewhere on the floor to be recycled, often as feed for local farm animals.

    The current economy has certainly affected the Lums as well. “Back in the day, I used to drive to Watsonville, Stockton, Lodi, Brentwood, and pick things up, going from farm to farm,” Lum says. “Couldn’t do it now [with] the cost of gas, and time.”

    Now operating seven days a week, the Vegetable Patch provides produce for a couple of restaurants in the area, including Vezer Deli and Valley Café, as well as to Monterey Fruits in Berkeley. The majority of its business, though, relies on customers coming into the store, or going into the field for “u-pick” crops when in season (July to December).

"You see every year, more and more orchards are being pushed out because there's no market for them." --Doreen Lum

   Lum fears for the future of Suisun Valley growers. “Remember San Jose, Milpitas, Hayward? The whole stretch was dirt and farmland,” she says. Even Rancho Solano used to be for cows and grazing. “I’m afraid that there’s too many big developers that own land out here.” Suisun Valley used to specialize in plums, pears, apricots, even cherries. “You see every year, more and more orchards are being pushed out because there’s no market for them.”

    Despite the hardships, there is still plenty of satisfaction for the Lums and their local vegetable patch. “It’s the people who patronize us,” Lum says. “Knowing that we’re getting good quality stuff to them; them telling us how good this makes them feel to be able to come out and get fresh produce. I just love being able to provide.”

    It’s important to know where the food we’re eating comes from, and it can be easy to forget how much work from others’ hands goes into the meals on our plates. “You’d be amazed at how many kids think tomatoes come from Raley’s,” Lum says. She offers field trips with a farm-to-market theme, teaching thousands of local children each year about the farming process.

    One of the many benefits associated with the locavore lifestyle is that food is picked at the ideal time—nothing is picked prematurely. “We guarantee quality. I eat everything here to make sure that it’s good, and if it isn’t I’ll let people know. I think what people appreciate is the honesty.” —Matt Larson

 

Steve Sando's passion for heirloom beans keeps him returning  to Mexico every few months looking for new varietals.

Rancho Gordo

While beans are a native plant to the Americas, many North Americans are not very familiar with the extensive variety of these magical fruits. Steve Sando is looking to change this, one seed at a time.

    Owner of and bean hunter for Rancho Gordo in Napa, Sando does not come from a farm family; nor did he have more than pedestrian knowledge of growing vegetables before he converted his 2-acre backyard into an edible garden. His desire to grow food was born out of his cooking passion. Not finding the quality ingredients he was looking for, he decided to grow what he wanted himself. “I thought it especially weird that I couldn’t find ingredients that were indigenous [to America],” he says.

    Sando started growing heirloom tomatoes and beans. Since that first planting in 2000, rows of beans have taken over where the tomatoes used to grow. He was hooked on beans and quickly realized there was a niche in the market that he could fill—no one was providing consumers with as large a variety of gourmet heirloom beans.

    Sando immediately began making regular trips to Mexico in search of new varieties. “I just get so excited when I find [a bean] I’ve never seen before,” he says. With each trip, his understanding of heirloom beans grew. Thinking back now he says, “There was just so much I didn’t know about beans,” and admits that he was just scratching the surface.

    Sando’s backyard has become his testing garden and, due to the high price of real estate in Napa, the commercial growing is done on 150 acres spread among five farms in the Delta region. Sando has experimented with hundreds of bean varietals, but usually only sells 20 to 30 at a time. In addition to garnering attention from Martha Stewart Living, Domino and Food & Wine, Rancho Gordo has expanded to shipping nationwide via its comprehensive website.

"Napa used to grow a lot of fruits and nuts; there are still many of the old trees. But now Napa is so monoculture ... the league encourages everyone to grow food and not just grapes." --Steve Sando

    “We actually have a huge history of bean production in California, especially Northern California,” he says. “I am just reclaiming it. I am becoming a seed bank.” Sando smiles. “I get packets of beans every day with notes saying, ‘Can you identify this?’ or ‘This was my grandfather’s, can you grow it?’ Documenting seeds is really fun for me.” Beans are not the only plant Sando is using to help reclaim local agriculture. In 2006 he founded the Family Farm League, a grass-roots group of Napa residents working to bring food production back to Napa. One of the main projects of the league is its annual seed exchange; everyone saves seeds from plants they grow and exchanges them with others.

    “Napa used to grow a lot of fruits and nuts; there are still many of the old trees. But now Napa is so monoculture,” Sando says. “The league encourages everyone to grow food and not just grapes.” His viewpoint is that since food and wine go so well together on the table, they should go together in the ground as well.

    To propagate this, Sando has been working with Napa restaurants such as Cindy Pawlcyn’s Mustards Grill to test out bean varieties in the restaurant gardens. In addition, he has begun talking to many wineries about the possibility of growing beans between grape seasons, since the land is just sitting after harvest.

    Sando’s hands-on involvement in agriculture may be fairly new to this onetime web designer and avid San Francisco club-goer, but his involvement in the political side of agriculture is ongoing. Growing up in the Bay Area, Sando is a self-professed “hippie kid.” At the age of 15 he was on the picket lines with César Chávez and the United Farm Workers of America. This compassion for farm workers’ rights and concern for the food that is grown continues today in his newest project. With the influx of low-quality beans at rock-bottom prices flooding into Mexico, the farmers there do not have incentive to grow. “This is especially bad for small farmers growing rare, local beans,” Sando says. “We’re in danger of losing the varieties altogether.”

    Sando’s goal is to encourage agriculture where we live and to keep rare seeds producing.—Jeannie Howard

 

Rice is an extremely water-efficient crop, given the pounds of food per gallon of water produced. A one-acre rice field produces about 5,000 servings; that means Yolo county's 220 acres produces about 1.1 million servings of rice.

De Wit Family Farms

Over the winter months, the land that links Davis and West Sacramento is a playground for waterfowl. When the birds fly off with the advent of spring, much of the soil returns to the production of rice, and to the care of Jack De Wit.

    De Wit didn’t come from farming. But he was drawn to it when he came to the University of California, Davis to play football (on a good day, he’ll admit he was captain of the team in 1965). With a degree in agricultural business management, he put in time at The Rice Growers Association of California and for Anderson Farms in Davis before branching out on his own in 1984. “I started very small,” he recalls. “I leased land with an option to buy, picking up pieces here and there until I got a good ground base.”

    Today, De Wit annually harvests 300 to 500 acres of three types of rice—short grain or sushi rice, sweet rice and medium grain—and another 300 to 500 acres of wild rice. He also cultivates safflower and wheat, and grows and sells rice seed. “It’s been 24 years without a paycheck from someone else,” he says with a smile.

    De Wit’s business, which spans Sacramento, Sutter and Yolo counties, is governed with the daily assistance of his wife, Bonnie (“It couldn’t have been done without her,” he says emphatically); their two sons, who handle issues ranging, from crop health to equipment; and a handful of regular, year-round employees, plus seasonal employees when it’s time to harvest. Daily chores include inspecting the fields from his “office”—a truck he shares with his dog, Star—while troubleshooting with his hardworking staff.

"Large agriculture is not bad; you need to farm more in order to have more flexibility. A combine costs $250,000. That's a lot of acres to harvest to make payments." --Jack De Wit

    Running his own company is accompanied by a variety of challenges. First, like any agricultural producer, De Wit is hostage to Mother Nature. Everything initially depends on rainfall. “In dry years, everything is on time and under control,” he explains. “We can get started [with planting] in March. In wet years, sometimes we won’t have access until April, due to flooding ... and we might not finish until July.” Simply put, if the land is submerged, there is no access to the property. “You can’t do anything until it dries up,” he says. The winter rains of 2005-06, when accumulated rainfall rippled just feet below the Yolo causeway, caused a delay of about three to four weeks. But this year’s harvest, preceded by a dry winter and spring, is expected to be above average. De Wit and his staff finished planting in mid-June and began harvesting in late July, which will continue through October—just in time to welcome back the region’s waterfowl and other wildlife.

    This symbiotic relationship is where De Wit’s partnership with California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) comes into play. Though he owns land in Sacramento and Sutter counties, the Yolo farmland is leased from both CDFG and Conaway Ranch. The alliance with CDFG is especially visible due to the proliferation of protected wildlife. From November to March, geese, ducks, pelicans, river otters, beavers and more all flock to the water, with crop residue serving as a smorgasbord. “Fish and Game is like the hotel,” De Wit says, “and we provide the restaurant.”

    Other challenges come via public opinion. “There’s a lot of resentment against corporate farms,” De Wit says. “We’re corporate, but we’re also a family.” He adds, “Large agriculture is not bad; you need to farm more in order to have more flexibility. A combine costs $250,000. That’s a lot of acres to harvest to make payments.” Another advantage is that where a small farm may lose a harvest to substantial rainfall, De Wit might have some salvage options. “If there’s a late flood,” he says, “maybe there won’t be white rice that season—but we can still grow wild rice.”

    Then, finally, there’s the question he says has actually been asked: “‘You got a college education and you’re still on the farm?’” De Wit just chuckles. “I tell them, ‘I got a college education so I could build a farm!’ I’m here because I want to be here.”—Ana Cotham

 

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