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Jan 26, 2009

The Middle of Winter

28 January 2009
The Middle of Winter

It rained last week. The amount of water that fell from the sky was just enough to make the yard muddy and fill the root zone of the robust crops that are hunkered down for winter. It was not enough to ease the minds of the people who are worried about the water availability of this coming summer. In fact, I think that all of the rain we received was soaked up by the dry soil and none of it was able to run off into streams and rivers to be deposited into a storage reservoir for use next summer. The rumor is that there is not enough water to use the irrigation canal in the dry months. Since I have been farming, I have never seen this happen; I have heard it rumored before but every summer there has been water in the canal that we were able to use on our crops.

If there is no water in the canal the outcome of the summer for many farmers may not be as controllable as farmers would like. Many farms, including ours, have ground water wells that pump water from the aquifers that are found between 50 and 500 feet below the soil surface. This is a temporary solution but not a sustainable one. If suddenly every farm in the county is using ground water, the supply is bound to dry up. The ideal situation would be that February yields a huge amount of rain and the snow pack reaches record levels. The snow pack is important because the melting of this snow in the spring yields the majority of the fresh water that is captured in reservoirs and used in the state. The next best situation is that the ground water is able to sustain farmers for this summer and that next winter is a really wet one. The scary thought is that the next few winters might be extremely dry – this would wreak havoc on the agricultural industry.

Despite the lurking concern for water I am feeling very good about next year. All of the seeds needed have been received; they are neatly organized in the office. The people who will be growing our transplants have their marching orders and I am feeling good about the delivery dates that were selected for each crop and each planting (a detail that has a huge impact on the success of a year).

This week is our farm's annual CCOF inspection. CCOF is the organic certifier that our farm has used since 1984. The inspection is relatively easy to comply with, especially if you follow all of the rules – as our farm does. It takes me about a day of work to organize the files needed. They want to see all of the receipts of the seeds purchased, fertilizer used and transplants purchased. They need to look at the labeling used on products, the system used to tract products from the field to the customer. A drive around the farm is then completed and a look is taken at the packing facility. Notes are taken, a report is submitted to the CCOF office. Generally a follow up document is sent out requesting some more information and making recommendations about areas to watch for next year. The process is good but I wouldn’t put it past growers of questionable morality to pass the inspection by withholding key documents or facts that would remove their organic status. It is for this reason that you should know and trust the farm growing your food. Enjoy your boxes and rest assured that our farms standard of growing are well beyond the definition of organic. - Thaddeus