New Small Farm Initiative boosts UC efforts for Coachella Valley small farmers

University of California Cooperative Extension, in collaboration with California State University, San Bernardino, is reaching out to Coachella Valley’s small-scale farmers with a new program to provide information about alternative crops, marketing niches, cooperatives and financial risk.

Coachella Valley small-scale farmers face unique challenges. During the summer, the extreme heat – often pushing mercury beyond 115 degrees – stresses tender vegetables, requires immediate post-harvest cooling and makes direct-marketing at road-side stands virtually impossible.

“Many of the products small growers handle are extremely perishable. Within an hour after picking, they have to be cooled off,” said UCCE Riverside County farm advisor José Aguiar. “Since they don’t have a lot of product or labor, it creates problems.”

In the winter, the pleasant weather attracts flocks of snowbirds – people escaping cold climates. The growing population is competing with farms for the valley’s limited water supply, driving rapid urbanization and increasing property values. Desert land that just a few years ago was valued at $6,000 an acre now routinely sells for $50,000 an acre. Since most small-scale growers cultivate rented land, the changing land value confers insecurity and a reluctance to invest in the farm.

Coachella farmers are also far from traditional Southern California agricultural marketplaces and, consequently, new marketing ideas are needed for small-scale farmers to compete with the large farming operations in the valley.

To help farmers cope with these issues, the two educational institutions created the Small Farm Initiative at the CSUSB Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant funds will allow for enhanced outreach, development of innovative marketing programs and a pooling of resources to help the most disadvantaged farmers in the Coachella Valley and the other parts of the Inland Empire.

The Small Farm Initiative has the potential to benefit growers like Doug Adair, who manages a five-acre organic date farm in Thermal. Adair’s commitment to organic production makes plant nutrition and pest control especially challenging. Farm advisor Aguiar suggested growing cowpeas as a cover crop. Cowpeas capture nitrogen from the air and change it into useable fertilizer.

“Cowpeas can help knock down weed populations and provide nitrogen and organic matter, so growers of many different crops are very happy with the system,” Aguiar said.

Adair uses a variety of methods to market his dates, including a booth at the Alhambra farmers’ market, mail order and an innovative “Rent Mother Nature” program, in which consumers pay “rent” on a date palm through the year, then receive the dates from their own palm tree when they are harvested in October.

Another farmer who has been helped through the years by UCCE advisors is George Torres, who began his career in agriculture as an irrigator while his wife picked okra. Together they set out on their own, first renting small plots of land to grow their own okra and later purchasing 10 acres and leasing 30.

Torres speaks jovially of the many hits and misses of his agricultural career. As a result of his experience, he has become a master of diversification.

“If I plant six crops and five miss, at least one does well,” he said. UCCE agricultural economist Eta Takele, the SMI project investigator, pointed out that diversification plays a big role in stabilizing small farm income and is therefore a key risk management tool.

Torres attributes much of his success to the help and education he received from UCCE through Aguiar and Aguiar’s predecessor Butch Durazo.

“I used to have an inferiority complex about being a small farmer,” Torres said. “Butch built my confidence. He taught me how to look for solutions. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have survived.”

Torres, who met recently with farm advisors at the elegant dining table in his new custom ranch home, has more than survived. His combination of personal ingenuity, ability to learn from mistakes and willingness to take wise counsel has made him and his family a picture of the American Dream. It is this outcome that the SFI fund recipients – including Takele in cooperation with subtropical horticulture advisor Peggy Mauk and vegetable and small crops advisor Aguiar – would like to extend to more Coachella Valley and Inland Empire farmers and that prompted involvement in developing the Small Farm Initiative with CSUSB.

As part of the SFI project activities, the UCCE farm advisors surveyed the needs of local farmers. The study revealed that small farmers need markets close to home, so seminars were conducted to teach growers how to develop alternative local marketing options. Also, as part of the partnership, Joe Elizondo, director of the CSUSB Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship, has been working on a promising alternative marketing strategy. He is exploring a cooperative relationship between local small-scale farmers, the Department of Defense Farm-to-School lunch program and the Desert Alliance for Community Empowerment.

The Department of Defense would like to use small farmers’ fresh fruits and vegetables, but needs a steady supply. The Desert Alliance owns an under-used cold storage and distribution facility. By working together and carefully planning their planting schedules, a consortium of farmers may be able to provide the fresh produce consistently over the year. The Small Farm Initiative is working to pull the players together and launch this innovative and mutually beneficial proposal.

(October 2004)

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