Climate and location spur organic growth in San Benito

San Benito County has become an oasis of organic fruit and vegetable production because of a temperate climate suitable for growing a wide variety of crops, relatively affordable ground and close proximity to large markets of natural foods enthusiasts in the San Francisco and Monterey areas.

The county is home to Earthbound Farm, the largest organic vegetable grower in the country, but many, maybe most, of the organic farms in San Benito County are mid-sized operations selling a large majority of their harvest to markets within 100 miles.

"We kind of chose to focus on local markets. Probably 75 percent of what we grow stays within 100 miles of the farm," said Phil Foster, who grows organic fruits and vegetables on two ranches near San Juan Bautista and Hollister.

Every Saturday morning, a steady stream of customers comes to buy tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons, apples and pears at the farm stand on one of Foster's ranches. But he has also found markets at Northern California Whole Foods, through San Francisco-based Veritable Vegetable and at New Leaf, a Santa Cruz-based independent chain of eight markets.

He is one of the San Benito County farmers who found opportunities by converting ground used for less profitable crops to organic production.

"I first tried organic production in 1989. It seemed like an opportunity, so we tried it on a small scale," Foster said.

The economics of land costs made San Benito County a natural for Foster to keep growing his organic operation.

"Santa Cruz and Monterey county land was more expensive, and it was harder to finance the three-year transition to organic," he said.

Foster started farming in the 1980s on 30 acres; today, he farms on 270 certified organic acres and is transitioning an additional 15 acres to organic.

Along with proximity to local markets, he said, San Benito County offers weather to grow a wide variety of crops and to offer his employees year-round work.

"We have highly skilled people working on the farm and I really wanted to keep them, so I had to have work for them year round," Foster said.

For some organic growers, the ascendance of San Benito County has been a journey spanning nearly four decades.

"We were the first certified organic farm in San Benito County in 1976," said Grant Brians, who farms 175 acres in the Hollister area as Heirloom Organic Gardens.

Brians recalls the challenges to agriculture in the shadow of Silicon Valley that convinced a previous generation of farmers to give up their land and make it available for conversion to organic production.

"People thought agriculture was gone because the dried and canned apricot industry was gone. When organics became more popular in the 1990s, the land here was cheaper than in the Salinas Valley or in Santa Cruz County. It was a lot easier to transition land at one-third the cost, and you could grow almost everything here that you could in the Salinas Valley," Brians said.

Brians, like Foster, grows a wide variety of crops and sells most of his harvest locally.

"We market a significant percent of our produce in the Bay Area. We're about 80 percent in California, and 60 to 65 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area. We do 10 farmers markets a week, and we're unusual in that we sell well over 60 percent of our produce to restaurants," Brians said.

The county's organic boom got a huge boost in the mid-1990s when the largest organic vegetable grower in the country looked for room to base its operation and found it outside San Juan Bautista.

When Earthbound Farm began selling its salad greens to major national retailers, the company needed a spot for its headquarters, which were originally in a 600 square-foot home in the Carmel Valley, then moved to a 9,000 square-foot facility in Watsonville.

"San Benito County is where land was available. When Earthbound Farm was taking off, the prime agricultural land in Salinas and Watsonville was already spoken for, and this is where land was available to convert. We moved our plant from Watsonville to San Juan Bautista because a larger plant was available," said Samantha Cabaluna, vice president for marketing and communications at Earthbound Farm.

Earthbound grows 4,000 acres of organic salad greens in the county for processing at the San Juan Bautista plant, and figures to keep expanding its local growing operations.

"We have very rich agricultural land here and lots of microclimates, so you have variety, which is particularly important for organic," Cabaluna said.

The success of organic spring mix salads has made it possible to keep land a half-hour from Silicon Valley in agricultural production.

"The key to preserving agricultural land is that farmers can continue to make a living," Cabaluna said.

Today, Earthbound Farm and its Salinas Valley partner Mission Ranches grow 80 percent of their own vegetables. But when the company opened its San Juan Bautista processing plant, it created opportunities for other farmers in the county to convert to organic production of vegetable greens sold to Earthbound.

"At one time, I grew for Earthbound Farm. When they started, they didn't have a lot of land here, and it opened opportunities for local farmers to grow for them," said John Tobias, who farms between 350 and 400 organic acres in the Hollister area.

Today, Tobias grows organic spring mix and clipped spinach for Salinas-based Taylor Farms, and said he believes San Benito County developed as an organic offshoot of Salinas Valley vegetable production.

"Salinas Valley goes into the conventional lettuce, and we are kind of an organic satellite. There was an opportunity for organic ground in this area," Tobias said.

Brians said he sees the pieces in place for continued growth of organic farming in San Benito County.

"Without question, organics will keep growing here. I'm seeing it take place. I'm expanding and I will be working with land that is not now certified organic," he said.

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Monterey. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@aol.com.)