May/Jun 2015
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Cheating the Little Guy?
New law aimed at stemming farm market fraud whacks good producers instead. Change is coming to California certified farmers’ markets, and while consumers may not notice the difference, vendors and market managers certainly do. Assembly Bill 1871, signed into law by Gov. Brown last September, is aimed at stemming fraud at certified farmers’ markets but…
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Get the Dirt
A letter from the editor. “Thank you dirt, thanks a bunch, for my salad, my sandwich, my milk, and my munch. Cuz dirt, you made my lunch.” ~ Banana Slug String Band I’ve been humming that song for the last few weeks as we put together this first-ever themed issue, devoted to all the many…
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W3LC0M3 T0 NUMB3R5 L4ND
What we can learn from fresh beef, canned corn, and other million dollar groceries. There are 493,000—give or take a new baby or two—of us residing here in Sonoma County. In other words, you’ve got nearly a half million neighbors, all of whom would ideally like to eat at least three times during each and…
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Born to It
‘On Her Own’ documents the last generation on Gleason Ranch. If one were under any misapprehension that farming is romantic work in which one dreamily moves from field to flower in a fresh gingham frock finding rosy-hued eggs in clean straw nests before leisurely baking pies, On Her Own, the new documentary film about Sebastopol’s…
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Slice of Eden
A food forest grows at Chickweed Patch in Petaluma. Suzanne Mackey leads the way through a berry bush-lined path of her backyard, next to a greenhouse made entirely of recycled materials. The berries aren’t yet ripe, but the scene is like something out of a fairytale—especially for me, a born-and-bred Los Angeles kid who fell…
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Soil Savant
All the many reasons why Phil Coturri covers his crops. April 1 is an auspicious day to meet famed organic grape grower Phil Coturri, because April 1 is the day that Coturri makes his twice-yearly switch in practice. “Growing grapes is a monoculture,” he instructs, standing on the rocky, volcanic soil of a vineyard adjacent…
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Ground:Level
How carbon farming might be the Earth’s last best chance. Since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, when the tilling and disruption of soil became a signature mark of human civilization, carbon has been billowing into the Earth’s atmosphere. While a key component of all life, this lightweight element has also become Public…
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Metamorphic Magic
From green bin to black gold at Sonoma Compost. Halfway through a tour of Sonoma Compost, on a hill above the green rolling valleys of Petaluma, I stick my hand into a freshly turned pile of decaying organic material. It’s steaming hot. So hot, you could stick a turkey into the middle and it would…
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Sustainability on Steroids
Singing Frogs Farm and the great no-till, mega-compost experiment. Editor’s note: This excerpt adapted with permission from ‘The Drought Fighter,’ originally published in ‘Craftsmanship Magazine.’ The complete article can be found online at craftsmanship.net/drought-fighters One March afternoon in 2014, on Singing Frogs Farm, the small vegetable farm that Paul Kaiser runs in Sebastopol, a group…
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Folks You Should Know – Renata Brillinger
Executive Director of California Climate and Agricultural Network (calCAN). Renata Brillinger is the co-founder and executive director of the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN) coalition, which is devoted to advancing public policies that advocate for and impact California agriculture in the face of climate change. For over 17 years, Renata has worked on sustainable food systems…