Judith Redmond

It looks like you’re not just growing the same thing here.

Yeah, we’re a very diverse farm, for sure. We grow fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, nuts. Yeah, we’re very, very diverse. And we actually think of that diversity in some ways as our crop insurance. So that if we have one crop that doesn’t do well, we focus on the other ones.

Are you making a living?

Well, [Full Belly] Farm’s been here since 1985. We market to three different farmers markets a week. We have about 1,500 families that are members of the farm and that get produce from us every single week. And we sell to many different restaurants and stores. So, yeah, this is a really wonderful way to grow food and, uh, it definitely seems to be a model that works well for us. Yeah.

What is one of the advantages of being diverse?

Well, like I mentioned, it’s kind of a crop insurance, and we experienced that recently when we had a freeze that killed or ruined all of our stone fruit crop. But we also think that this diversity helps to provide habitat for various pollinating insects and natural enemies of pests. And we actually make sure that there’s flowers available with nectar and pollen every single month of the year, even in the winter, because we specifically want to encourage pollinating insects and natural enemies of the pests.

And the diversity, I think is part of that whole model. So, we really, even in our orchard crops, try to have other things going on in the [understory]. We try not to have bare earth. It’s not good in terms of erosion, it’s not good in terms of soil health, and we think that it’s great to have as much diversity as possible, because we think that’s just a healthier ecosystem, and we think that it helps in terms of pest management.

Since you’re organic, you don’t have to use certain types of pesticides.

Yeah. Well, our pest management program starts kind of in the soil, really. So, having soil that’s really healthy and plants that are getting sort of well-rounded nutrition rather than just certain specific things like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are the three big ones. So, it starts with the soil. We use really great compost. We feed the soil with cover crops. And then there are times when we definitely have pest problems, and we use various different approaches.

Like I said, we try to encourage beneficial insects that can help us with controlling those pests, but we do occasionally need to spray or use some kind of a intervention. It’s not very common for us to do that, but when we do, if we have to use something, it’s always going to be something that has a fairly specific impact, just as much as possible only on those pests. And isn’t something that is bad for natural enemies or for people or for mammals or fish.

So, we’re really careful what we do spray, when we do spray. And there are certain things that are allowed in organic agriculture, and those are the only ones that we would use. We’ve been certified organic since 1985, and so we’re pretty careful to really have a healthy system. And so we don’t want to disrupt a lot of the natural cycles that you can sort of see at work here when you walk around.

What is it that makes this a better environment to discourage pests?

Well, first of all, you’ll see right here that we’ve let this crop go to flower. And that’s a good thing, because most of the beneficial insects need nectar and pollen. A lot of them in their adult stage of life, they need nectar and pollen in order to continue their life cycle. So that’s one thing that you’re seeing here.

But the other thing is that with sort of a lot of different plants growing in the same field — maybe a few beds of spinach and then a few beds of other kales and chards sort of mixed up together — what we find is that sometimes, for example, the pests don’t really build up in their populations as much as they would if it were 300 acres of spinach. Where the pests can just have sort of a banquet ongoing for several months without any other crops where the beneficial insects might be able to find them.

So, bugs aren’t your overarching enemy. Why aren’t you alarmed about the weeds that are seen as well?

Weeds are actually the number one issue in terms of pest management for most organic farmers. They are the thing that we probably spend more money on managing than insects or diseases.

And it’s true that we may have a slightly higher tolerance for certain kinds of weeds, than other folks that are growing crops. And that is partly due to the fact that we spend more money managing them than other folks. But we’ve also learned that weeds can often really not pose a problem. And so we’ve sort of learned to adapt to looking out at a field and seeing a lot of weeds. We more look at our crop and say, is that crop going to be healthy?

Is it getting what it needs? And if the weeds are interfering with our crop, we’ll definitely be concerned. And so some of the things we have to do is we’ll send a crew, where we’ll come out here with a hoe and weed out the weeds by hand, which is much more expensive than spraying with chemicals, believe me. Especially because we try to pay our folks as well as possible. So, another thing that we do is we can actually cultivate those weeds out with a tractor.

That’s another thing. But again, that’s costing fuel, it could potentially compact the soil if we don’t it the right time, and it takes a person to do it. So, again, we only do it if we need to. And then we also have a strategy for trying to control weeds before we even get them when we don’t want them in the crop. Like, when we plant the seed, when the plant the transplants in the ground, how we water.

All of those things can have an impact on how many weeds you have in a crop, and so our management program is maybe a little more, we have to really pay attention to the details and be out here looking at what’s going on and try to understand how we can manage to have a healthy crop given that there’s all these other factors like weeds and insects and weather and so forth that we’re having to pay attention to at the same time.

Another thing we’ve seen in Central Valley and Iowa is big application of fertilizers. Are you using anhydrous ammonia? What do you do for fertilizer?

It kind of gets back to this idea of balanced diet for the soil, which then provides a balanced nutrition for these crops. And so that’s what we’re thinking about when we try to figure out how to be — we think of it as fertility in the soil is sort of the number one building block of healthy crops.

And so we like to provide actually a soil that has lots of microorganisms. Because in most of the natural cycles of a lot of the nutrients that crops need, like phosphorus and nitrogen and potassium and all the micronutrients, those things are actually released naturally in soil by natural cycles. And so what the sort of the green revolution technology is to sort of just provide the liquid forms of those nutrients readily available for those plants to suck up.

And sometimes that actually turns out, in my opinion, not to be the healthiest way to feed those plants. And I actually think of it as if it was a kid getting a vitamin pill with sugar, like just sugar and fat and carbohydrate, as if that’s all that he needed. So, our plants get kind of a more balanced diet, and they get that because we have cover crops — in other words, crops that we grow for the soil, not for sale.

And those crops, we grow them, they fix nitrogen from the air, which has a lot of nitrogen in it, and we turn them under. That nitrogen is released through a natural process in there. And the plants get it slowly as they need it. Cover crops are one thing. We also apply compost to every field once a season, and the compost really gives those microorganisms in the soil a little boost. Everything that they need is in there, because it’s balanced nutrition.

And it’s just like with our pest management program, every so often we have a crop growing really fast in the summertime — you can see it grow every day. It’s like it’s growing every single day. The corn or the tomatoes or something. And it needs more than we can give it with those, um, programs that I just described. And so there we might apply something else. We might give it something else, in some liquid form. But it will always be in an organic form.

It’s not going to be just anhydrous ammonia. It’s not going to be just a form that’s sort of readily available, sucked up by the plants as a chemical. It’s going to be a more balanced nutrition.

What kind of crops are we seeing out there?

There’s a fairly large block of spinach here. And then there’s some lettuce. And probably in lettuce we grow eight or nine varieties.

So, a lot of those different colors out there. There’s some lettuce, and then there’s some broccoli. And then there’s a lot of our salad greens, like a little bit of arugula and some Asian greens out there. So, and then again, at the edge of the field, there’s something that’s flowering. And at the very far end of the field, there’s our fava beans, which are one of my favorite early spring, crops, because I love the taste of them. Fava beans are delicious. And beyond the fava beans are our walnut trees.

So, just in this five-acre spot, you’re going to see quite a few things. And once this field is ready to harvest, there’s going to be people walking up and down these beds harvesting every single day, six days a week.

Are you worried about the butterflies we saw out there?

There’s some butterflies that maybe the adult stage are a beneficial insect. There’s other butterflies that are simply not interested in the crops.

They’re just here because they happen to be here. And then there’s other butterflies that are pests. They’re the adult stage of pests. We’re not too worried about them. No. We’re not worried about them. We have another thing that I forgot to mention is that we have bats and owls on this farm. And we encourage those bats and owls as much as possible. We have bat boxes and owl habitat, and we think that they are one of our really biggest friends in controlling some of the moths that are a real problem.

The [coddling] moth. Its worm stage that’s the problem. But the coddling moth is a huge problem in our walnuts and the corn earworm is a problem in our corn and other crops. And the moth stage of those two bad insects gets eaten by bats and owls for sure. And those bats can eat a lot of insects in one night. And we have hundreds of them. Hundreds and hundreds. Clouds of bats.

Some of the farmers in Iowa feel bad about their fertilizer runoff and are aware of the big dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Is that a problem here?

We don’t have to worry about fertilizer running off into the river, because most of the fertilizer that we would apply isn’t highly water-soluble like some of the things that would be applied on a conventional farm.

What’s an example of the fertilizer you use? You mentioned compost.

Compost and cover crops are our foundation of our program, our fertility program. I think we use fish emulsion, for example, which is a pretty balanced and that is water-soluble. But we just don’t apply it at rates where we see it in the water, we use drip irrigation. We just don’t have runoff into the creek. It’s not an issue here.

Tell us how you came to grow 200 acres organic.

It’s just been an evolution. It evolved slowly from 100 acres. We started this farm in 1985. Uh, we started different markets along the way that have worked pretty well for us. I think all of us — myself, especially — feel like growing food that’s really high quality and that people really appreciate and like is very satisfying to one’s soul.

Being out here in this environment is very, very positive, and I think also we feel like there’s a way in which we can make a difference in terms of the food system and people’s access to good food.

We noticed some kids here. Are you training some future farmers?

Yeah. Full Belly is a farm that not only grows food, we grow future farmers. We grow beneficial insect habitat. We do much more than just grow food here.

And our kids’ programs are almost year-round. We have school groups that come in the spring and the fall and stay and camp here for two or three days a week. We also have a camp that comes several weeks during the summer. And we have quite a few other educational programs. We have an internship program where there’s about five interns a year that actually live here and stay for a year and learn all the different aspects of sustainable agriculture from us.

So, we think that as important as the fact that we’re losing farmland is the fact that we’re losing farmers. They’re really, really an important artisan, and there’s a lot of important knowledge there in farmers, that I think it’s important we keep.

They’re a vanishing breed.  In the Midwest, the average farmer we met is 50-something.

Yeah. They’re older. Yeah.

Their kids aren’t coming back, and they’re not happy about it.

We’re seeing a lot of kids wanting to get back into agriculture. We are inundated with requests by kids to come out here. Really, really, many excited kids. So, I think that if agriculture could sort of, in some ways, change its image and reach out to the public a little better than it has, that would turn around. It’s not been a good economic outlook, either, for farming.

For a long time. And so that’s another reason I think that people don’t see it as a career to stay in.

Only 1% of U.S. farmland is organic. Why is that?

I think that farming organically does take a little more direct attention and time. It takes a little more time to learn.

Most of the agricultural institutions aren’t as supportive of organic as they are of conventional models. There hasn’t been enough support from farm programs at the federal level. There hasn’t been enough research at the university level. And in many ways, policy is geared toward some of the largest farms. A lot of the times they actually write the policy.

And so it’s often — maybe it’s even inadvertent — but it’s often really difficult for farms of a small or mid scale to maintain themselves. Because there’s a lot of challenges that face agriculture as a whole and I think especially organic agriculture.

In our film, we have a clip of a Congressman requesting from an agriculture committee in the Senate a boost in the money to help farmers transition to organic, and that was shot down. Do you think this approach to agriculture could be more widely used with a little more support on the federal level?

That’s a hard — I think the main thing that farmers need is a market. And I think once the market’s there, a lot of farmers will be willing to transition. But the transition can be expensive. It can be fraught with risk. So any programs that help farmers in that transition are definitely going to increase the number of farmers that would look at organic agriculture. And I just think that at the moment so much of the federal dollar goes to the wrong places.

So, yeah. I think more of it should be helping farmers think about new markets, reach out to customers that care about these kinds of issues. Food quality, food safety, those kinds of things. And I think then we would see a greater number of farmers considering organic agriculture.

That’s what we got out in the Midwest. The certification takes three years. It would seem our government would want to encourage it. That’s what our film is about. It seems pretty imbalanced, the money going toward traditional agriculture versus transitioning to organic.

Yeah. There’s a lot of vested interest in the conventional model, I think.

What do you mean by vested interest?

Well, I think that the folks in our food system that are making money are the people that are in marketing and in international trading of a lot of those commodity crops. And those guys often happen to also be selling chemicals. Chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

And all of our food aid is tied to those chemical pesticides and fertilizers, so we’re trying to get people all over the world hooked on them. And I think a lot of our policymakers also are more often hearing from the lobbyists that represent those marketers and processors and global players.

We’ve been meeting those people. They’re saying that organic can’t feed the world, can’t even feed our country. What’s your sense on that?

Well, I know that our farm is very productive, and I also know that if you look at the scientific literature — in other words, people who aren’t associated with selling chemicals — they say that organic and conventional agriculture, when compared side by side are fairly equal in terms of yield and production.

In fact, in developing countries, where most of the world’s hunger is, like Asia and Africa and India, you’ll see that organic models and systems have advantages and have often higher yields than conventional agriculture. So, I think that those folks are wrong. And I also think they don’t have a very good track record. If you look at hunger in the world today, since the Green Revolution, for example, you’re not finding us solving that as a problem.

I think when people start talking about yield, they’re diverting you from the real issues, which have a lot more to do with empowering local farmers to be able to have the resources, the land and the water that they need to grow crops to feed themselves. To grow crops to feed themselves. That’s what it is about. It’s not really about organic versus conventional at all. It’s about politics and infrastructure and power in the hands of the farmers.

How much help are you getting from the Farm Bill?

This farm’s never accepted any federal or state funds ever. This farm has paid for itself from the very beginning. We don’t participate in any of those programs. However, we do have friends that have used Farm Bill program money to grow habitat for beneficial insects, for example.

Or to protect their stream edges from erosion and runoff. So, there are programs in the Farm Bill that work. This farm has never participated.

The numbers of farmers that apply for that kind of assistance outweighs the money that’s made available. Do you think there’s enough of that kind of assistance?

There should be much more money going into the programs that help farmers build new markets, be better stewards along river edges, grow beneficial insects for their farms, especially now that we seen pollinator problems with the honeybee decline. All of those programs should be increased, because that’s what actually farmers need to build these new models that are going to work and that are going to keep their kids in farming.

We see a lot of honeybees here. In Iowa, the farmers are saying they’re all gone.

Well, there’s 3,000 species of pollinator that exist in California. Honeybee is only one of them. A lot of the bees like bumblebees that you’re seeing around here pollinate crops, but they’re not the honeybee. So, what we’re trying to do is create habitat for all of those different species.

And what you’re seeing is the result of that work over the last 20 years. We have habitat here, and we have flowering plants here every month of the year. And that’s what those pollinators need. They need habitat. Honeybees need it too, but other native pollinators need it as well. And there’s many pollinators that are more efficient at pollinating vegetable crops than the honeybee. We’ve just adopted an agriculture that as the ubiquitous pollinator.

Instead of farming those honeybees, what we want to do is grow the habitat for many different pollinators that, um, will be here and take care of our crops for us.

You seem to feel good about what you’re doing here. Do you like your vocation?

Yeah. I believe that this is a great career and a great vocation, and I love that we’re taking care of these plants, and we’re taking care of the soil and this piece of earth. And I love that we’re able to provide really, really good food for lots of people.  It’s very challenging almost year in and year out to keep doing this. But I think it’s a wonderful thing to be doing.

And I’m really happy that so many of the interns that went through our program go on and start farms of their own. I think it’s because this model works.

We heard in the Midwest that needs to be more support to develop markets. Do you find there’s plenty of demand for your produce?

Well, we’re very lucky in that regard. There is a tremendous demand for this produce. There’s these member programs that we have. I mentioned there’s 1,500 families that get a box of our produce every week. And that movement of having membership directly in farms is growing, and I think the demand at the moment far outstrips the supply. So, I think there’s a strong consumer element to this whole thing.

Where there’s actually people that do want, once they discover good food, to continue eating it. Good, fresh, wholesome food makes people feel so much better about themselves, and it’s such a connection to the earth and in many ways a connection to things that they really need. And so once they discover this, they really, really do want it. And we’re lucky, because we live in the Bay area where there’s a lot of understanding about a lot of these issues of food and the environment and farming.

Do you think people are becoming more concerned about pesticides in their food?

I probably have a circle of consumers that I talk to that is very well educated. And many of them aren’t simply concerned with pesticides, although they are concerned about pesticides, because they believe that that impacts their health. But they’re also concerned about broader issues.

World hunger, the environment, how we treat our labor. How we take care of the creek, because it turns into their drinking water downstream. A lot of bigger issues beyond the pesticide and health issue are on people’s minds, I think.

Why is so hard to craft policy that actually does things, like open up new markets and provide money for transitions? What do you see as the barriers to why they can’t write that policy?

Yeah. It’s very hard, and I think the Farm Bill has provided somewhat a window into why. I think part of it really is because they’re elected by very vocal constituencies who have a tradition of farming the government.

And it’s going to be very difficult to get those guys to change what they’re doing. And so when policymakers start thinking about changing the Farm Bill, they really face a big ruckus in their home states. So, I guess we have a lot further to go on some of those issues than we realized. Because it does seem like it’s very hard to do things that are clearly better in the long run for agriculture.

Companies like Monsanto or [Cargill] and others are bankrolling a lot of the people making the decisions. Do you feel like that might have an effect on the way they vote?

Well, I know that it helps the companies that are trading in all of those commodity crops to have those prices of U.S. products low on the world market.

And that’s what the Farm Bill commodity programs are all about. Benefiting those global companies that are selling that stuff back and forth. They’re not really that to benefit the farmers, even though the farmers are kind of addicted. They’re there to benefit these global traders. And they like having low prices for U.S. products. That’s what it’s about.

Charlie [Stenholm] has raised over $2 million from agribusiness. When I asked him about organic, he said it’s a niche market but it’s only great for people who can afford it. He dismissed the whole thing. In our film, we’re trying to say maybe if there was more research money, more organic supply, more farmland devoted to it, maybe the price would come down a bit. What is your reaction to that?

I think a lot of the organic food that’s expensive is processed. And I think people need to reformat their diets so they’re cooking at home more if they are concerned about price. When people think about the price of food, they have to think about nutrition also and not get food that’s low in nutrients at fast food chains. If people are concerned about both the price and the healthfulness of food, the best thing for them to do is to get fresh, fresh foods.

Things that are in season to get for their vegetables. Rather than the processed stuff that’s in bags or that’s all ready to eat, all of that kind of stuff. People have to get off of that diet that we’ve been sort of taught as kids from the very beginning, is they have to get back in their kitchens and cook fresh fruits and vegetables. And once they start doing that, the price of nutrition in their diet is going to go way down.

You have to get high quality nutritious food and make it be fresh and in season, and then you’re not going to have as much of a problem with the price. It’s that processed stuff that people are eating that’s driving up their costs.

Is there any connection between the limited supply and the high cost?

Yeah. It’s definitely true, I think, that if there were more organic farmers, the prices of some of those products might decline. But it also is true that there’s a lot of hidden costs that we’re not aware of in that conventionally grown food. And that in order to pay people a fair wage to hoe your crops, it’s going to cost a little more, but in the long run it may be better for our communities and for our environment if you do that.

It’s very quiet in the Central Valley. Why is it so noisy here?

Well, I don’t know. I mean, we have a pump running in the creek right down there that you maybe can hear. We have tractors driving around. We also are very unusual in terms of vegetable growing farms that we have domestic animals. We have chickens that you can hear crowing and roosters over there. They’re free range, so they’re fenced in, but they get to move around outside. They’re not caged. And we have a ton of birds.

And the birds can be a problem in our grapes and in our peaches, because they like to eat them. But we figured out how to manage that. We just think it’s healthier to have habitat for wildlife.

And all the buzzing and the birds tweeting doesn’t bother you?

No, we love it.

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