Producer Profile.
By David Gaines.
 

Affordable Organically Grown Produce
is Another Benefit of Shopping at Local Certified Farmers' Markets.

   When Smith Farms switched to organic farming in the winter of 1996, they were the first organic farms in Orange County. The conventional farmers that McKay Smith associated with assumed that he'd gone crazy. "They all laughed at me when I went organic," McKay smiled, remembering their reactions. "Everything was growing great at first, so I was thinking, Boy, this organic farming is really fantastic! But once July and August came I think every harmful bug in Orange County came to visit my farm. I try to be positive and optimistic about things, but it really upset me that they chewed up most of my plants."
   At that point, being the optimist that he is, McKay decided to stick it out, but to get more information before he pursued it further. He eventually hired a consultant from Sacramento, who charged the young farmer $125 per hour, but it was worth every penny, McKay says. "He gave me some really good advice, and then I did some research on the Internet and checked out books at the library. In those days there were very few people to turn to with knowledge about organics."
   Organic produce is grown without the use of potentially harmful pesticides (volatile chemicals that kill insects, worms, weeds, fungus, or mold), or synthetic chemical fertilizers or growth stimulators. According to Dr. Gordon LaBedz, MD, in the July/August 2004 issue of the Southern Sierran, "These poisonous chemicals accumulate in your body, and with a lifetime of exposure may cause serious health consequences."
   Smith Farms' certified organic produce graces the following Harbor Area Farmers Markets locales: Long Beach Downtown on Fridays, Cerritos on Saturdays, and Long Beach Southeast on Sundays. Besides Smith Farms, there are currently eleven other farms participating in the Harbor Area Farmers Markets that grow certified organic produce, available at three of the four HAFM markets (the exception being the Wednesday market). These farmers' marketstalls can be found by asking an Assistant Manager or the Manager, if necessary, though banners proclaiming "Organic" mark most of them.
   McKay's grandparents started farming in Orange County in the early 1900s after moving to the area from Spanish Forks, Utah. With their oranges and other citrus fruit they helped to create a region of Southern California that soon became known for its bountiful farms.
   When McKay's father Blair Smith took over the farm, he ended up growing more specialty crops -- unusual things favored by particular ethnic groups -- such as black radishes, celery root, and oyster plant, that he sold to local packing houses for eventual distribution all over the world. Blair Smith also sold sweet corn to grocery stores all over LA and Orange Counties, and in fact was one of the largest corn producers in Orange County at that time. "My dad let me sell the corn at a little roadside stand for summer spending money, and I also sold pumpkins in the fall," McKay recalls fondly. "I would sell our corn at the little roadside stand for 10 cents for a dozen ears, or a dollar for a little tomato box full of corn. I would sell 40 or 50 boxes in a few hours since it was so fresh and sweet. A few years later we enlarged the stand and hired some employees, and then my aunt took over because it was a more serious business. So at this point my dad started growing things for the larger stand."
   In 1979, when McKay was 18, Blair was asked to join the first certified farmers' market in Southern California. McKay and his father attended the market in Gardena for about two years; and when HAFM opened its first market in downtown Long Beach in July of 1980, they were there for the grand opening, says the 44-year-old family farmer. McKay's mother Paula has been involved in selling at the markets for many years, and still sells at several. His sister and aunts and uncles have all been involved in the family farm as well.
   McKay's grandfather Alpheus Smith farmed 18 acres in Santa Ana, which his father inherited and then sold to buy a 400-acre farm in Santa Maria in the late '70s. The Santa Maria farm is still in the family, but McKay grows all of his produce on acreage in Orange County. He leases a total of 30 acres in four separate locations: one each in Irvine and Huntington Beach, and two in Fountain Valley. Two of them are certified organic, and the other two utilize organic techniques (although not certified). He has a total of 36 employees: at each location, a field foreman with field crew, and sales supervisor with sales staff for the roadside produce stand.
   Right now (July) Smith is growing mostly tomatoes, and several different varieties of squash and string beans. His strawberry season has just ended, but he is now offering cantaloupes. He also grows a large variety of other seasonal vegetables, including cucumbers, asparagus, artichokes, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, celery, sweet corn, eggplant, cilantro, peas, pumpkins, and peppers (among them the Habanero, known to be one of the hottest in existence).
   All four of the Smiths' farming locations are surrounded by homes, and McKay thinks that people in these residential neighborhoods are glad that he uses organic farming methods. "I really believe that organic is the safest and best way to grow food and I love doing it," he insists proudly. "I think the products taste better and are healthier because the soil is full of nutrients. We don't use any potentially harmful chemicals, especially the volatile chemicals that have no odor. The only problem with organic farming is the bad odor from using some organic materials, like chicken or fish manure."
   After finding out where to buy organic fertilizers -- substances like fish meal, chicken feather meal, sea kelp, or corn gluten -- he soon discovered that he needed to find varieties of plants that were more resistant to pests. He found that several safe chemicals are allowed in organic farming. Most are like ordinary liquid dishwashing detergent, but can be used as pesticides against aphids, whiteflies and other bugs. Not only are they made of non-toxic chemicals, but they are safe to use because the field application mixture needs only a tablespoonful per many gallons of water.
   The only drawback with organic farming appears to be the bushel basket of data gathering and paperwork that must be handled on a daily basis. "It's not the money issue that keeps me from certifying the other two farms -- about $2,300 each per year -- but the additional amount of paperwork and data gathering I would have to deal with," McKay sadly sighs. "It takes a lot of my time and also the time of my foremen. For example, every day we have a daily log sheet that has to be kept up on both certified farms, where my foremen have to notate what we do, things like hoeing, planting, or tractor work. And we have to keep track of everything that gets harvested, how much we pick, where it will be sold, and what we used for fertilizer or against pests."
   Smith Farms are registered with the certification agency Quality Assurance International, which keeps a close watch on their organic operations in behalf of the consumer, McKay says.  "They check our paperwork to see if we are actually doing the things that we say we are doing. And they want to see if we're using something that we shouldn't be using, like pesticides or chemical fertilizers of any kind. And they want to see if we're selling something as organic that is not really organic. They come out once a year to do a complete audit, and then visit once every few months to check our operation for compliance."
   In organic farming bugs are thought of as either good guys or bad guys, a help or a hindrance to growing quality produce. "Another thing we did was to create a living habitat barrier around all of my farms," says McKay. "The hedge is about six feet in width and goes around the whole farm, and it's made up of about 20 different varieties of flowers. Each one attracts a different type of beneficial insect, which helps because there are conventional farms near my farms that have harmful bugs. Sometimes we'll put out milk and molasses near the plants, which is lactose and sucrose. This attracts even more good bugs because we give them a home and food."
   Smith Farms also purchase a large variety of bugs from insectaries. He says a bug called a lacewing is even better than lady bugs because it's determinedly carnivorous. "They're really good for aphids and whiteflies," says McKay. "The first few years of farming organically I had to buy a lot of bugs, but once I got my ecosystem in order, the good bugs started to come in naturally. When I was farming conventionally in the '80s and early '90s, I was spraying a lot of heavy-duty chemicals, but I would still have large outbreaks of flea beetles or whiteflies and aphids in just a few days between the spraying periods. The bad bugs seem to multiply much faster than the good bugs."
   Conventional farmers use many different potentially harmful chemicals as preventive measures. For example, for growing strawberries the conventional way most farmers use several different pesticides that they mix together in the spray tank. They might use two for mites, one as a fungicide for gray mold or petridus, and another for army worms. So basically they're killing everything above ground in the path of the berries. These chemicals actually seep into the berry. By contrast, an organic strawberry will never see a chemical.
   "For mites I use two types of predator mites every 10 to 14 days," McKay maintains. "They will eat the target mites that eat the plants. I will actually take a jeweler's magnifying glass and go around and check the leaves of the plants before each release to see what the ratio of good bugs is to bad bugs, which tells me how many predators to put out into the field. It's time-consuming to walk the fields every few days, but this is why organic farming is more time- and labor-intensive."
   Many of the chemicals used in conventional farming are systemics. One popular systemic chemical is called di-methylate. These chemicals actually seep into the cells of the plant. Then when the bugs eat the fruit or vegetable or leaves, the bugs perish. "The chemical companies say systemics are not harmful to humans, but I don't know if I agree with them," McKay states boldly. "I can't imagine that it wouldn't be harmful over a long period of time. There are a lot of unknowns about these chemicals."
   The Orange County farmer thinks that organic produce offers more flavor to consumers. "The flavors are just magnificent. You can get some good conventional produce, but in general I think that the organics usually taste better. I think that the chemical fertilizers and pesticides do change the flavor. For example, I took some regular potatoes and organic potatoes and put them in a microwave oven. When I pulled them out the organic ones were sweeter and more fluffy. If people compare the two they'll see a big difference in flavor. It's not just the sweetness, but the flavor itself is better because the plant and the soil are more healthy."
   Rotating crops is another method of creating and maintaining healthy soil. For example, rather than fumigating the ground for strawberries, most organic farmers grow green cover crops, which is a sustainable way to create rich healthy soil. It could be a legume crop that is used, such as beans or peas. Farmers will harvest some of the crop and then disk the rest of it into the soil to create additional nutrients.
   Farming is a very labor-intensive business, one that is very costly for a small farming operation like Smith Farms. One thing that is really costly is his share of state workers' compensation. In 1998 he was paying about $16,000 for workers' comp, but this last year (2003) he paid $140,000 for the exact same number of employees and the same amount of earnings for each one. "This is almost ten times the amount I was paying a few years ago," he affirms. "That's why small farms and other small businesses are folding up or not making much profit these days. And why a lot of small business people are leaving the state to go where they can do business less expensively. I'm not making any more money selling my produce than I did a few years ago; how am I supposed to come up with an additional $125,000 every year?"
   People tell McKay that he should raise his prices at the farmers' markets, but he doesn't see that as an option. He thinks that his prices are where they should be because of the high level of competition at markets. Some customers complain that a six-basket box of strawberries is priced too high, but it takes his employees about 45 minutes to pick one box.
    "It’s so brutal doing business these days that I have to watch everything that my employees do to maximize my efficiency," he explains. "Minimum wage was $4.25 an hour in 1988, workers' comp was low, and taxes were low. Now I'm paying most of my employees about $7 per hour, workers' comp is at 20% of salary, and taxes are higher, so I'm paying them about $9.25 per hour with benefits. Therefore, I have to watch the hours they work much more closely. Before, if the guys wanted to work an hour or two overtime it was no big deal."
   Equipment repairs are an added bane for every small farmer. A truck or a tractor is always breaking down, walk-in coolers and deli scales at each farm have to be repaired, and refrigerated trucks, sulfur dusting machines, disks, plows, and all kinds of power tools must be maintained and repaired. "We're constantly doing maintenance on everything and then repairs when something breaks down. Most of my truck repairs cost about two or three thousand dollars on average, and I have seven trucks."
   It's not surprising that an organic farmer must charge a little more for his precious harvest, but in the certified farmers' markets -- where the averaged prices for all produce items are typically about 20% less than those of local supermarkets (see our most recent price comparison survey) -- even the price of an organic item compares favorably with a supermarket price.
   McKay Smith has seen many changes in the way farming has evolved over the past few decades, those many years gone by since he was selling corn and pumpkins on a makeshift table on the roadside for spending money as a teenager. He continues to deal with new challenges in the 21^st Century on his own organic family farm.

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