Future Farmers

The future of farming will be on parade next week during the
62nd annual Healdsburg Future Farmers Country Fair. If you attend,
you will be filled with admiration for our hard-working and
dedicated next generation of farmers and future ag industry
leaders. These youth really dig in to their livestock projects.
They eagerly run through their many tasks of organizing, staffing
and cleaning up after each year’s event and auction. They work
right along side all the adult volunteers, often on equal footing.
It’s great teamwork.
Around Sonoma County, there are many other places and events to
gain reassurance that our county’s farming way of life is still
very robust, ever-changing and full of great people and
families.
El Molino and Analy high schools in Forestville and Sebastopol
have two of the very active and successful Future Farmers of
America chapters, as well as top notch viticultural programs with
their own school vineyards.
All over north and west Sonoma County, there are 13 vibrant 4-H
clubs with hundreds of youth members, led by adults who were once
young 4-H clubbers themselves in many cases.
As strong as the living multi-generational farming link may
seem, there is always a need to be mindful of the always-present
governmental, commercial and environmental challenges that impact
the farms, farmers and farm families of Sonoma County.
“As a county we need to take action to protect our open space
and keep it in agricultural production, this means keeping
agriculture financially viable so that farm families can make a
living from their land,” said Joe Pozzi, the recently elected
president of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau who is interviewed
elsewhere in today’s newspaper.
Pozzi, 48, is an excellent example of today’s modern farmer. He
directly markets his sheep and cattle, selling his Pozzi Ranch Lamb
to high-end restaurants and grocery chains. He produces Pure Grown
Wool and he is also the district manager of the Gold Ridge Resource
Conservation District.
“Worldwide, we have food at our fingertips, but we don’t really
protect our local growers. I fear that in future generations, food
is going to be like oil,” the Bodega rancher said.
“We need to protect agriculture for future generations. There’s
more we could do to promote food locally.”
All of us non-farmers have a role to play as well. Eating
locally grown and produced foods is on the increase and more and
more of us are supporting small farm diversity and community
markets with our pocketbooks. That’s a healthy habit for all
concerned. And, as Pozzi says, it’s also a good way to support open
space, our county’s natural beauty and our rich agricultural
heritage that dates all the way back to the 1850s.
Our farmers produced $653 million in winegrapes, milk, poultry,
cattle, sheep, vegetables. herbs, apples, flowers, hay, honey and
more, according to the county’s official 2009 annual crop
report.
Much of our more visible landscape has been planted to
vineyards, but there is a whole lot more to Sonoma County’s
agriculture than just wine and grapes. And it is at events like
Healdsburg’s little country fair where the true spirit and skills
of farming and land stewardship are passed along.
Farming has been changing here since the beginning. We have been
the egg basket, the hops capitol and the belt buckle of the prune
belt to the rest of the world.
Now, our young and future farmers are leading new ag ventures in
organic products, farm tours and agritourism, new vineyard
practices and “green” energy and water conservation measures.
There’s lots that’s very new and changing on many Sonoma County
farms of all sizes. There’s also plenty that’s not new — and that’s
where the love of good soil, respect for Nature’s powers and the
sense of pride in a good’s day work comes in.
— Rollie Atkinson