Farmworkers to Farmers
News: An innovative program in California trains mostly immigrant workers how to succeed as organic farmers.
August 11, 2006
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SALINAS, CALIF –Until just a few years ago, Stanford University served its students more than 11,000 meals a day using only conventional – that is, non-organic – produce. Today, 10 percent of the fresh produce served at Stanford is not only organic, it comes straight from local, independent farm workers-turned farmers.
Stanford's embrace of organic produce came by way of a partnership between the university and a Salinas, California-based farmer-training program called the Agriculture and Land Based Training Association, or ALBA, which trains 20 mostly immigrant farm workers each year in the business of organic farming.
ALBA's farmers-in-training supply competitively priced vegetables to dining chefs, who under the partnership commit to buying from the program -- a "farmer's dream," says ALBA's marketing coordinator, Dina Izzo, in which the produce is effectively sold before it's off the stem or out of the ground.
ALBA also has contracts with UC Santa Cruz, which gets 15 percent of its produce from the nonprofit, as well as other organic distributors, and since 2003 sales of ALBA Organics – produce grown by students and graduates of the program – has grown at a steady clip of 50 percent per year. This year ALBA expect sales near a half million dollars.
ALBA Organics has, over time, cultivated innovative, stable partnerships with nearby businesses, helping their small farmers compete with big organic outifits.
Some farmers who have been through the six-month program have been able to strike their own deals with large buyers. For instance, Domatilla Martinez, an ALBA-associate farmer, sells artichokes to the nearby Whole Foods in Monterey nearly year round. And another, Amparo Martinez, no relation, grows and packages his strawberries, which he sells to Trader Joe's for regional distribution.
A key component of ALBA is the Small Farmers Education Program, known by its Spanish acronym PEPA (Programo Educativo para Pequeno Agricultores). Most PEPA students were once farmhands, but there are others who were truck drivers, welders, and produce packers. Nearly all come from Mexico, Central and South America.
While most come to the program looking to become independent farmers, others seek a more general training in how to run their own business. Some PEPA graduates have gone into industries other than farming, including dry cleaning and leasing Port-A-Potties.
“This program helps them see what’s possible,” said Brett Melone, ALBA's executive director. “It gives them a taste for what it means to be self-employed.”
PEPA focuses primarily on organic farming techniques, claiming its piece of the $134 million a year organic industry in Monterey County. After the initial PEPA training program, ALBA offers its graduates land, equipment, water, and marketing support for three years.
In the past 20 years, more than 400 farmers have gone through the program. Currently 26 graduates lease anywhere from a half acre to 22 acres of farmland in the Salad Bowl of America, either in Salinas or Watsonville, California.
However, not all of PEPA graduates have remained in Salinas. Housing prices – the most unaffordable in the nation relative to income – and the competitive niche marketing of organics combine to challenge even established small growers.
“It is so difficult for small producers,” said Richard Smith, Weed Science Farm Advisor with the UC Cooperative Extension in Salinas. “If you blow it at any point [retail outlets] will abandon you because there are so many alternatives out here.”
To help prepare students for real-life challenges, PEPA builds reality checks into the program, like gradually increasing the rental price of land to graduates to two-thirds of market price by the third year.
Yet even of those who leave Salinas, or the organic market, many still farm. And that is the main goal of the program – fostering economic viability.
Some graduates have deals with farmers' markets, some have set up CSAs (Community Support Agriculture) in their own communities, bringing affordable fresh food to their neighborhoods.
And the program counts on educated consumers to look beyond the organic label to learn where their food is coming from, ensuring the fruits--and vegetables--of these farmers' labor are tasted for years to come.
Elizabeth Gettelman is research editor at Mother Jones. Mark Murrmann is a freelance writer and photographer.
