Organic vegetable production climbs as markets strengthen

Organic vegetable production has seen tremendous change since the 1970s and 1980s. Most sales were to the small, mom-and-pop groceries and health food stores in the early days.

"Amigo" Bob Cantisano, owner of Organic Ag Advisors in North San Juan, said organic vegetable production is more mainstream today, and organic products can be found in thousands of stores around the country.

The quality of the production is dramatically better, too, Cantisano continued, adding that demand has also taken a big increase as markets continue to grow.

"The products we're producing today are every bit as good in quality as conventional," he said. "Probably the most significant change is that back in the '70s and '80s, most of the organic producers were very small acreage."

Richard Smith, University of California Cooperative Extension vegetable crop farm advisor for Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties, agreed, noting that in the beginning it was mostly smaller growers until the mid-1990s when, in Monterey County in particular, larger growers started to enter the organic vegetable market. These growers also started reaching the mass markets.

"They had access to those markets, and so they kind of took over whatever was there in terms of the mass marketing, and the smaller growers continued with farmers markets and community supported agriculture and direct-to-retail to certain retail marketers like Whole Foods," Smith said.

Cantisano said he thinks having organic vegetables available in the grocery section in many stores has been a positive move for organics.

"I think it's a great thing. I think that consumers all over the country need to have access to the product, and in many communities the only access is in the major chains," he said.

Smith said there are a lot of challenges to growing organic vegetables, including smaller yields and higher costs of production.

Growing organic vegetables isn't particularly easy, Cantisano agreed.

"Probably your biggest challenge year in and year out is weed control. It's typically more challenging to control weeds on an organic farm than a conventional farm," he said. "There are beautiful weed-free fields, but it requires careful planning, and good crop rotations, and good cultural practices. But I think that, on balance, we're just about able to produce every crop organically, just as well, and oftentimes, at just as high a production per acre as conventional.

"I have clients farming thousands of acres of organic vegetables, and you couldn't tell the difference between those and the conventional ones," he said.

Tara Smith, part owner of Tara Firma Farms in Petaluma, has 300 acres that includes vegetable crops and a variety of livestock. The farm has been in operation for two years and she raises vegetables year-round.

"We do all direct to the customer. They either pick up here or they have CSA," she said.

Part of the new organic vegetable market has come to include more growers raising both conventional and organic crops.

"Typically, those are conventional farmers who then get into organics on a small scale," Cantisano said. "There are quite a few of those operations, and I think that's a trend that's going to continue. Almost every one of them expands their organic production. I'd say probably nine out of 10 have expanded it, in some cases dramatically.

"I think a pretty high percentage of the new organic product in the marketplace is coming from farms that have transitioned ground to organic," he said.

Cantisano lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills and in his community, it is predominantly small-scale vegetable farming.

"I have seen quite a bit of land getting turned into vegetable production, but it's mostly been coming out of idle land, or conservation reserve programs, or pastureland. So, that's the kind of ground that will get most commonly turned into vegetables," Cantisano said.

Cantisano has an organic vegetable farm and sells at farmers markets, direct to restaurants and small grocery stores, plus he has his own farm stand and he sells in a CSA. The key is diversifying, he said.

"Farmers markets do get backed up. I mean, there's only so much produce that you can sell there, so you have to do a mix. If you just rely on a farmers market, it's going to be pretty difficult," he said.

Cantisano has been working in organic agriculture for 36 years, and said there has been steady growth.

"It slows down a little bit when the economy gets a little rough. We were growing at a double-digit pace from 10 to 15 percent a year all through the '90s and into the 2000s, and now it's down around 7 or 8 percent. So, it's definitely slower, but it's still growth, and I don't see that changing," he said.

(Kathy Coatney is a reporter in Corning. She may be contacted at kacoatney@gmail.com.)