From The Fields ®
From the Fields is a firsthand report featuring insights from farmers and ranchers across the Golden State, including members of the California Farm Bureau. If you would like to be a contributor to From the Fields, submit your name, county of membership and contact information to agalert@cfbf.com.
Photo/Courtesy Katie Harris
Photo/Paolo Vescia
Katie Harris Tehama County fish farmer
Robin Lynde Solano County sheep rancher
I raise Jacob sheep. I’m mainly in it for the fiber, but I also sell butcher lambs— the live lamb, not the meat. We facilitate them harvesting on our property. Then it goes to a local butcher. I sell the fiber for yarn, and I weave and sell my handwo- ven things. I’m a farmer and a weaver. I do a lot of public interaction things like teaching classes, mainly on weaving. I also teach a class on livestock management. The sheep business is going well. I’ve sold all the sheep I wanted to. I’m not selling direct to market, which has better pricing. I’m selling them for $3 a pound live weight. I think it’s working out. We just sold 11 lambs, and they were the last for the year. We’re in breeding season. I put the rams out a little earlier than I normally do. They’ve been out for two and a half weeks. I’ll keep them out for another couple of weeks. We had some challenges in the spring with how much water we had and how long the fields were flooded. Things didn’t grow as well, and hay prices went up a lot earlier this year. One of the smartest things I ever did was to start something called Farm Club, where people—usually fiber enthusiasts—pay a yearly fee because they want to support a small farm and be part of it. They get to come do hands-on things and learn behind-the-scenes stuff about the farm. I send them emails about what’s happening on the farm, the nitty-gritty stuff. I have farm days where they come and take part in what’s going on. I invite them out at lambing time and breeding season. The members get a product each year, either fiber or sheep skin or whatever they choose. I don’t know that I have a business model, but if I did, Farm Club is part of it.
We produce rainbow trout. About 80% of our sales is for recreational fishing markets throughout California, and 20% goes to our seafood sales. During the summer, we focus on seafood sales, and we’re just getting ready to kick off our stocking season. We have a lot of inventory that we’ve been building up, and we’re getting ready to start stocking in Southern California and the Bay Area. The most noteworthy thing this year is we have significantly more water. All our farms are on springs. With the past year’s winter, the rains have been able to re- charge those springs. Having more water at all our farms allows us to grow more fish. Our greatest challenge is the cost of goods. Cost to raise fish has gone up substantially. Fuel prices dictate so much of our margins because we transport fish all over the state. Trying to adjust for inflation and what we can pass on to our customers is absolutely our greatest challenge, particularly for me as I try to set pricing for the year. Feed is another huge cost for us. Our feed varies dramatically. What we feed our baby fish is very different than what we feed our larger steelhead. It has dif- ferent nutritional requirements based on the life stage of the fish. Our babies get a feed that has much greater protein. Recreational fishing markets remain very strong in California. We stock urban areas, and there’s still a lot of people in the greater Los Angeles area, San Diego and Bay Area who want to go fishing. Seafood sales have been lower since COVID. We sell our fish into high-end restaurants, and the restaurant market remains somewhat weak for a multitude of reasons. That’s definitely been a chal- lenge. We compete in the seafood world with different species, so there’s much more competition in the seafood side than in recreational fishing. Recreational fishing is really sustaining us right now.
Mel Resendiz San Diego County cut flower farmer We grow different varieties of proteas. We’ve been doing this for 23 years. It’s been difficult for a few years, but this year, finally, we got some rain. The storms really helped. Some areas were damaged, but mostly the water just went down into the creek. This is the first year that I’m seeing water running in the creek the whole year round. We didn’t have that many hot days. It was cool and kind of drizzly early in the mornings. With the trop- ical weather, there were some issues with mildew in some of the flowers. Other than that, it has been pretty good. I’ve had a very good market the last three years, so I’ve been doing pretty good. The prices are hold- ing up. There’s been more demand in the domestic markets, so we don’t need to export as many flowers to other countries. The busiest season for us is Valentine’s Day all the way to Mother’s Day. Right now, it’s not as busy. We’re harvesting some of our Special Pink Ice, which is a variety of protea. The plants started produc- ing a month ago, and they’re going to go for another six weeks. It’s a lot of work. We have to harvest every other day, back and forth in the hills, in order to get a good flower crop. If we don’t harvest every other day, there’s a lot of yellowjackets and insects that get into the flowers. The flowers might end up looking nice on the outside, but the insides are damaged. Some of the difficulties we’ve had have been with finding labor. I think that’s the main thing. And ev- erything is so expensive. Minimum wage went up. Water rates went up. When you’re adding up all those things, it’s hard to operate. We have to work three times harder in order to do what we did before.
Photo/Rob Andrew
4 Ag Alert October 11, 2023
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