C A L I F O R N I A
Vegetables A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ®
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Broccoli is harvested at Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville. With acreage in Pajaro Valley, Imperial Valley and Mexico, the company has become the largest family-owned organic farm in the U.S.
How small plots and big dreams built organic farms ByBob Johnson WhenWatsonville farmer Dick Peixoto tried a few acres of organic vegetables in 1996, other growers in the area asked him jokingly howhis little gardenwas doing. “I started farming in high school when I was 17,” Peixoto said. “I got tired of being a farmer for shippers.”
Success brings its own challenges, as organic growers who started by serving small independent retailers learned to scale up to do business with larger supermarket chains. “The smaller retailers and the co-ops were the foundation,” said Scott Mabs, CEO of HomegrownOrganic Farms. Selling in the mainstream, however, requires being able to supply produce on an entirely different scale. Now, Mabs said, “we represent about 120 organic growers with about 8,000 acres.” HomegrownOrganicoffers volumeas the sales agent for smaller organic farmers,most of themtree-fruit growers. For Peixoto, the differencemaker was partneringwith a grower in the desert, which al- lowedLakesidetoshipvegetablesall year.Theadditionofproduct fromwarmerareas inthe winter, suchas the Imperial Valley, allowedLakeside tooffermore vegetables year-round. “Our claim to fame was that we grow so many different items,” Peixoto said. “We’ve focused on being the supplier formany items.” The organic market started with smaller stores but grew quickly with the emergence
Today, with2,000 acres in thePajaroValley, another 1,000 in the Imperial Valley and hundreds of acres inMexico, his little gardenhas grown to become the largest family-owned fully organic farm in the country. “We do 45 or 50 stops up throughout the Bay Area,” said
Peixoto, who namedhis company LakesideOrganicGardens inmemory of those jokes. “Companies likeVeritableVegetable andEarl’sOrganics came around, and thenWhole Foods. We were getting demand fromWhole Foods and other buyers.” Peixoto shared his story alongside other growers and shippers who also started small and became players in the mainstreamorganics produce market. They discussed their experiences and the challenges of scaling up organic production during a December roundtable at theOrganicGrower Summit inMonterey. Peixotoandother farmerswhogrewandbuilt their businesses say they startedorganic production because they wanted to hold ontomore of the cash paid to intermediaries in the conventional supply chain.
See GROWTH, Page 14
February 16, 2022 Ag Alert 13
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