Merced County farmer Cannon Michael manages a farm that’s surrounded by wetlands and wildlife habitat, right. One way Bowles Farming Co. has worked to conserve the land is by growing native plants, below, to provide refuge for pollinators, birds and other species.
Transforming seeds, transforming people Bowles Farming Co., Merced County
Long before conservation became a modern movement, Bowles Farming Co. founder Henry Miller in 1870 worked to protect what was then the last known group of tule elk hiding on his land, a working ranch surrounded by wetlands and wildlife habitat. As the ranch’s elk population grew in the early 1900s, the animals were moved to other sites to begin their re-establishment. Today, the elk residing at San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex near the farm’s headquarters can be traced to Miller’s preservation efforts. Bowles Farming continues to make conservation a core focus of its business. It actively maintains 640 acres of wetland habitat, which has been under a conservation easement since the 1970s to ensure the property remains that way. “We’ve been farming in a very unique area, which makes us think more about the natural system around us,” says Cannon Michael, president of Bowles Farming and grandson of one of the founders, Henry Bowles. The farm has restored key riparian corridors in areas not used for producing crops. By managing invasive weeds and growing native plants there, Michael says the land provides refuge for pollinators, birds and other terrestrial species that the farm relies on for its cropping system. For example, creating habitat for birds such as hawks and owls has helped to solve the farm’s problems with gophers, which chew on irrigation drip tape and do other damage. “We wanted to make sure that land is as valuable as possible to the local ecosystem,” Michael says. The farm started Great Valley Seed, a company that produces seeds for more than 70 species of native plants. Some of the seeds are used for the farm’s own restoration work, while other seeds are sold to farmers and other landowners doing pollinator projects. In 2016, a full-scale composting center was added to the farm to turn 1,800 truckloads of green waste a year from surrounding cities and counties into soil amendments. The farm uses most of the compost, though some of it is sold to neighbors and other farmers. Michael says using compost
30
January/February 2024
Powered by FlippingBook