Last year the owner of Asilomar, the CA State Parks department, signed a 20-year contract handing over the running of the property to Aramark, a national corporation with 260,000 employees. This led to some controversy at the recent Hazon sustainable food conference, where certain local, sustainable producers had their products rejected as donations for the conference. The reason? “Food Safety”, according to Aramark.

And now, this “Alcohol Announcement” from the 2010 EcoFarm program guide:

“Dear EcoFarm Friends! We know that celebration is a very important component of the EcoFarm Conference and you are probably noting a reduction of fun activities, especially reagarding the consumption of alcohol. The new Aramark management at Asilomar changed several longstanding policies regarding alcohol in the months leading up to the conference and we did not have time to figure out a new cost and activity structure to accommodate this. Therefore, we needed to cancel several bars and activities. We hope that you will still find plenty of fun – ask EcoFarm staff if you are looking for ideas! Thank you for your patience and understanding!”

I’m not that much of a drinker, and I did still have plenty of fun, but I understand a certain disappointment. Many farmers see this conference as their vacation for the year; its the one time they can kick back with their organic-growing buddies from across the country, talk shop, get inspired, and party. While I had a great time at this year’s conference, I can see how Aramark’s new management style might be just a signal that EcoFarm needs to move into a new phase. And sure enough, EcoFarm’s organizers are openly considering a move.

With 1,300 registered attendees and more who wanted to attend but couldn’t register, the popularity of ecological farming may finally be catching up with the EcoFarm community. The organizers really seem to know what they’re doing, helping us come together “for education, inspiration, and creative solution-building”. There are workshops for everyone; for the farmer, for the gardener, for the activist, for the policy wonk, some practical, some aesthetic, some en Español. Over the three years I’ve gone, I’ve learned what I love most about the conference (besides the conviviality, and the seed swap) is that I really come away inspired to continue working on these issues, with these people.

Particularly, I get inspired by talking to “heroes” of the movement, like Bob Scowcroft or Judith Redmond, who have done so much to advance the cause of just, sustainable food systems, yet remain so humble and approachable. Sure, it instills in me hope to know that progress can and has been made, but it also makes me think about how (personally) I am only at the beginning of my journey as an activist. My goal is not just to create change, it is to create change while having a good time and being good to people, and it’s nice to know that I have role models for that!

As for the conference itself, I’ve learned that I get the most out of the practical workshops, so the ones I attended were:
“High Quality Organic Wheat for the Local Whole-Grain Market”
“Advanced Soil Fertility Topics: The Wise Use of Micronutrients in Organic Farming”
“Farming With a Sharp Pencil!”
“Are Internships Illegal?”
and “Classical Plant Breeding for Improving Vegetable Crops.”

With the exception of the wheat one (where a UC researcher babbled about the chromosome locations of wheat/rye hybrids), I learned a lot. I learned how to be a better farm business planner. I learned that regulations intended to protect workers are ruining the prospects for on-farm internships (which have no doubt played a huge role in the expansion of ecological farming’s success). I learned the importance of proper Boron levels in your soil (and what to do if they’re out of whack). And, in the workshop which could have been titled “Dorkin’ Out on Seed Saving,” I learned how to effectively set the right genome composition of desired traits into a summer squash plant, over years of selection and growing.

The most theoretical session I went to was “Planting the Future: New Leaders in Activism for Food Justice.” This was a plenary, so all minds were on deck to ponder a newly-emphasized aspect of ecological farming: urban food access, and the various forms of environmental racism associated with food. This was a wonderful presentation, full of hope for more collaboration between social justice advocates and the ecological farming community. It made me think, however, about what the next step was. With so much press and emphasis on urban farming and urban food issues, you’d think that once people start growing food in the city, a sustainable food system is inevitable. But clearly this is too simple a read on the problem. I love that people are making efforts towards urban food self-sufficiency, but maybe we should think three steps ahead: we may be growing more of our own food in 20-30 years time, but we likely won’t be able to grow all of it. So I’d like to see a concurrent emphasis, along with urban food production, on connecting urban communities with their rural counterparts. This connection could be rooted in physical trade of food and work, but also serve to foster inter-cultural dialog. Obama may not be able to unite the country, but perhaps sustainable food can?

Honestly, after attending many other food conferences, I have almost nothing bad to say about this one. It was a blast, and I’m grateful to the organizers for sticking with it for 30 years. I encourage anyone who has ever been, or would like to go in the future, to contact EFA with your ideas for a new conference venue, or any other suggestions you can make to help them improve and expand the conference while maintaining its integrity.

Well over a thousand farmers, activists, educators and homesteaders descend on Asilomar State Park in beautiful Pacific Grove, CA to attend Eco-Farm. For the old-timers (this was its 29th year), the event is an annual tradition, a sacred ritual; for the newcomers, it is an odd and wonderful time to learn and absorb. For me, a green second-year attendee, there’s no better place to meet the old and the new, the seasoned heroes of organic agriculture and the spirited soldiers of today’s burgeoning food movement.

At our first breakfast this year, I sat down next to Tom Willey of T&D Willey Farms in Madera, CA. He asked me if I was farming. I told him that right now I teach middle schoolers to grow vegetables but that I dream of having my own farm someday, though it often doesn’t feel like a very realistic option. His eyes widened above his white beard. He looked right at me and said “It’s the most realistic option. Especially now. Just rent some land. That’s what I did. Then, in ten or twenty years, you’ll know better what land to buy.”

To my surprise, many voices echoed Tom’s words. “Amigo” Bob Cantisano welcomed the new faces at Eco-Farm by declaring us a whole new, significant generation. He spoke to the older folks, telling them to nurture and foster this relationship in order to minimize the obstacles for the next generation and help us find access to land, credit and knowledge. “We haven’t figured out how to make this transition,” he said, “but we’re getting there.”

“Transition” was a word I heard in nearly every workshop I attended. One such workshop, “Organic 101 for New Farmers,” was a crash course in starting a farm. Eco-Farm has offered this workshop every year for the past decade, and this year’s was the biggest crowd yet. I could hardly keep up with the presentations on cost-sharing programs, intergenerational transfers of farm land, grants, loans and business planning tools. I furiously took notes on forming a cash-flow plan, analyzing a soil test and managing gopher damage (3 cats/acre, fed every other day in the morning).

Carl Rosato, farmer and owner of Woodleaf Farm, was very clear in his advice: either work for a year or two to save up $25,000 to put down as a deposit on a piece of land, or go in on the purchase with a few people. It’s that simple. Like every other presenter, he said emphatically that the need for new farmers is one thing the entire agricultural community agrees on. Then, as the workshop ran out of time, the presenters all gave us their phone numbers, urging us to come to them with questions. “Give us a call, we can talk.”

I tried to take a break from farm planning by attending the session on Artisan Cheese, but Dee Harley and Donna Pacheco ended up telling more stories about starting their farms than about their passion for cheese-making. Neither of these women had any experience making cheese before they began their operations, and they both relied heavily on grants and loans that are specific to small-scale, female run farms. They left us listeners with a sense that starting a creamery is a bold adventure and a life’s work, but very possible. “If you’re going to do it,” Dee advised, “do it right from the start.” With a nod to all of us young folks in the room, she added, “start small, learn it deeply.”

All this talk was rewarded with living proof: there are young people who, at my age, are already farming. One young man I met was growing olives on McEvoy Ranch. A year ago, he’d been leasing his own land and now, as he builds capital, he’s planning to buy a place to raise sheep and grow grapes, olives and vegetables. I heard a presentation from Toby Hastings, a young farmer who had no farming experience until a year ago, when he leased one acre from the Center for Land Based Learning; since then, he’s established a 30-family CSA and sells vegetables wholesale to restaurants. When asked if he ever gets tired, he smiles and says it’s hard work, but fun, and that he looks forward to going to the farm every day. “I think I’ll be farming for a while.”

On the last day, the whole Eco-Farm congregation packed into Merrill Hall for a final, boisterous call to action. Four of Eco-Farm’s founding fathers and mothers spoke on the topic of the “Final Frontier of Organic Agriculture.” Mr. Willey, the farmer I met at that first breakfast, happened to be among them and in his final words on stage he declared that now is the time to “pass the torch to a new generation of cultivators… I hope my generation has sufficiently inspired you to assume this immense and challenging task.”

And so we piled into cars for the trip back to our farms, schools, cities and townships, ready to share our sense of hope, our bright faces and our big ideas. I had the strange feeling that over the course of those three days, some of my dreams had become a little less wild and a little more tangible. I went into Eco-Farm with a burning question: can I really do this, can I really become a farmer? I went home with the grounding knowledge that, when I decide I’m ready, I can start a farm tomorrow.

P.S. In Eco-Farm’s generous spirit, here are some of the resources farmers and policy-makers shared with us new and aspiring farmers:

- Growing New Farmers, a community of new farmers and farm service providers managed by the New England Small Farm Institute.
- USDA Farm Service Agency, which provides information on loan, conversation and other relevant programs.
- The National Farm Transition Network, which connects organizations working on farm transfers all over the country.
- The Rodale Institute’s Classifieds and New Farm resources.
- The Beginning Farmer Rancher Blog by Poppy Davis of the USDA Risk Management’s Agency.
- CASFS (UCSC Agroecology), where you can download worksheets for creating small farm business plans and monthly cash flow spreadsheets.
- The ATTRA’s wealth of information (they’ll do research on pest management for you if you have questions!)

Can something be old as dirt and the next big thing? According to Helge Hellberg, of Marin Organic, it can.

“I believe the sustainable food movement will be focused more and more on soil,” Hellberg told a group of farmers, food producers, educators and advocates at a panel on carbon sequestration at this year’s Eco-Farm conference. “Farmers,” he added, “are crucial because they’re the ear to the soil.”

Well-managed, fertile soil has always been the foundation of sustainable agriculture. Recently, it is also being seen as a pivotal component in the mitigation of climate change. The Marin Carbon Project, a collaboration between Marin Organic, scientists at UC Berkeley, and ranchers in Marin, among others, aims to identify land practices that capture and store carbon in the soil.

Why store carbon in the soil?  Changes in land use and land management (such as industrial agriculture practices, which have stripped a great deal of the arable land in this country of its nutrients) have accounted for around one third of the greenhouse gases that are currently in the atmosphere. Returning to practices that create fertile, nutrient-rich soil not only benefits the food system, it also pulls a percentage of that carbon into a solid form. (See more on the carbon cycle here).

According to Becca Ryals, of UC Berkeley, the Marin Carbon Project is focusing on two promising techniques: the addition of organic amendments (compost) and keyline subsoiling (a form of low-disturbance tillage that loosens soil 12-18 inches down, allowing water to drain deep into the soil, as seen in the above photo). One of the project’s two test sites is the Carbon Farm, a 539-acre pasture in Nicasio. The farm is owned by John Wick & Peggy Rathmann, who set out to preserve and manage their land ecologically. The native grasses on their farm, like in most rangeland ecosystems, are important because many of them have long, perennial roots that store a considerable amount of carbon underground.

The Carbon Project is measuring and comparing carbon in the soil over time in plots where composting, and subsoiling are practiced. “We hope to produce scientifically sound data that we can then bring to rangeland managers so that they may also want to do sequestration projects,” said Ryals.

Many in the room were optimistic about the power of this fairly simple science. Wick read the following quote by Australian author Allan Yeomans, whose father invented the keyline system and Yeomans Plow: “If the organic matter in the top foot of all the world’s field and pasture soils were increased by 1.6%, the greenhouse effect would be back to near normal.”

Jeffrey Creque, Ph.D., an environmental agriculture consultant who has worked with Wick and Rathmann in developing the Carbon Farm, also rang in. “For anyone who’s been farming organically for any length of time, [carbon sequestration in soil] is not a surprising development, but it’s also a pretty exciting time for farmers and ranchers,” he said.

Creque pointed to the USDA’s recent addition of an Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets. The new office will offer financial incentives for land owners to provide clean water and air, wildlife habitat, and carbon storage by recognizing that these crucial aspects of sustainable farming are indeed “services.”

Carbon sequestration will be the first ecosystem service examined by the new office.

Helge Hellberg says Marin Organic is also developing models for how to apply carbon sequestration to California’s Assembly Bill 32, which was passed in 2006 but has yet to be implemented. AB 32 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — an initial reduction of approximately 30 percent, followed by an 80 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050.

Marin Organic is also working on a carbon auditing system for businesses in the area as well as a carbon labeling program – which would identify products as carbon neutral or carbon negative.

Beyond providing a possible financial boost for farms and ranches already using sustainable practices, Hellberg believes the nation’s focus on carbon will have an even greater impact.  “Pesticides essentially kill carbon,” he says. “A carbon credit system could offer conventional farmers incentive to transition to organic.”

Photos: USDA, Yeoman’s Concepts, and the Conservation Research Institute

Note: This is the first in a series of articles produced for CUESA highlighting the themes raised at the 2009 Eco-Farm Conference.  This post originally appeared in CUESA’s weekly e-letter.