Down on the farm

Many of us who live here in Sonoma County have been wrestling with our identity the past few years. We stopped calling this place the Redwood Empire several years ago, but not all of us want to be known as wine country. By land mass, we’re still rural and agricultural. But, by many other measures we prefer to be urban and urbane, more hip and less hick. We get wowed with mentions of “Sonoma style” and “wine country lifestyle” from places like New York, Los Angeles or Paris.
There’s no doubt we’ve changed during the recent decades of in-filled and dressed-up cities. We have many new neighbors. And, there’s no denying we’ve fallen in love with all the attention paid to our world-class premium wines, foods and visitor experience. But all these changes make us wonder if it’s all good, or not so good. What do we want to be? Does being world famous spoil us or destroy what we used to be?
Down on the farm, the answers are pretty simple. Right now, most of the focus is on the weather and the drought. How bad is the bunch rot? What’s the chances for an El Niño and a wet winter this year?
Farming is still hard work and is rewarded with a single pay day at harvest time. Yes, the tractors and technology are modern and expensive. Selling chardonnay grapes fetches better prices than prunes. And it’s sexier. Like when did they start putting pig farmers on lifestyle magazine covers? But being a farmer still means nurturing the soil, praying for good weather and being prepared to take the bad years with the good.
The latest official Crop Report, presented to the county Board of Supervisors last month, retells the whole story, with good news about some crops, not too bad reports about others and a positive long view for the county’s most dominant industry and worker force.
The newest neighbors of Sonoma County don’t know enough about the very long history of agriculture here. They don’t share the same rural and dusty town heritage the oldtimers are passing down to their grandchildren and great grandchildren these days down on the farm.
It’s true that our rural landscape and farming activities have changed. Spread-out cities, busier roads and shiny winery operations have obscured lots of Sonoma County’s ag roots. This leaves half of us whining about the “lost beauty” of living in the country and half of us praising it’s “expanding bounty.”
The Crop Report puts this debate in raw numbers. If not for the last three years of drought conditions, the county’s combined farm output for 2014 might have exceeded $1 billion for the first time in history. Half of the actual total of $899 million came from wine grapes ($592 million) which were down 5.5 percent from the previous year due to a drought-impacted season. Hay and pasture farmers were hit hardest by the drought, suffering up to a 41 percent crop loss and rocketing costs for supplemental hay and feed prices.
Apples experienced their lowest yield in recent history, reported county ag commissioner, Tony Linegar. Orchard acreage is only 2,155 acres, less than one-tenth of what it was just two generations ago.
The best news in the Crop Report is the increased activity and stable prices for speciality crops and products like organic fruits and vegetables, free range poultry, grain-fed livestock and dairy production for artisan cheeses and other new niche marketing.
In the Crop Report, Olivia Esparza, of Roseland, wrote the winning student essay. In it she said, “Agriculture is a huge part of our community. This is the reason why we need to keep Sonoma County farm-powered.”
— Rollie Atkinson