Front Page Article in the Capital Press

This article appeared in the Capital Press, the Northwest's premeir ag newspaper, on August 5, 2010.  I wanted to archive this article in its full form here.  That way if the link gets broken in the future, we'll still have it!  Here is the original article.

A broken limb mended

Family farm recovers from brink through hard work, diversification

By DAN WHEAT

Capital Press

CHELAN, Wash. -- Seven years ago, a man who grew up on a Chelan apple orchard gained notoriety for a documentary video called "Broken Limbs."

It depicted his father on the edge of losing the orchard and told about foreclosures of other north central Washington orchards. Times were tough for small, family growers. Many didn't survive the depressed apple prices from 1997 through 2002, brought on, in part, by increasing market globalization.

It took bigger companies to meet the demands of bigger retailers. And as operators got bigger, they seemed hell-bent on a race to see who could provide more fruit for less.

"My family has been in apples for three generations. I was to be the fourth. But I'm not. In this family tree, I'm the broken limb," Guy Evans said in the video narrative in 2003.

But "Broken Limbs" found hope in a new model of sustainable agriculture championed by, among others, John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri. He called for a "new American farmer" adhering to three tenants of sustainability -- that farms be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially responsible. Farms could be organic, holistic, practical or have no label at all, he said, but he called for direct marketing and farmer cooperation instead of competition to work for the community good as well as for profit.

New American farmers

Today, Guy Evans is 39 and his father, Denny Evans, is 67. Sunshine Orchards has become The Sunshine Farm.

Like many farmers around the West, they are working toward sustainability, to becoming new American farmers.

"A broken limb doesn't mean the tree is dead. This limb has mended and there's new growth," Guy said.

However, Guy's idealism of seven years ago is tempered by hard work and the reality that reaching his goal is harder and taking longer than he once thought.

"I've learned it takes a lot of time and money to try things out. The last five years, I've been in the trenches," Guy said.

Sustainability is more popular on the West Coast, Pennsylvania, New England and the upper Midwest than in other parts of the nation, Ikerd said.

Based on sales data, he estimates 7 to 10 percent of commercial farms in the nation use sustainable models or are working toward them. He estimates 4 to 4.5 percent are organic.

Food Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Portland that certifies sustainable farms, has seen a 64 percent increase in its farm and ranch certifications from Jan. 1, 2007, through June 30, 2010, said Scott Exo, alliance executive director. There are 361 Food Alliance certified farms and ranches in 25 states and two Canadian provinces compared with 220 three years ago.

"I think growers are getting strong signals from the marketplace that sustainable practices are increasingly important to commercial buyers and consumers," Exo said.

Video's impact

In 2003, the video, co-produced by Jamie Howell, of Wenatchee, Wash., and Guy Evans, received rave reviews.

It received a standing ovation from several hundred people and brought a tear to the eye of several, including Ikerd, at the Washington State Family Farm Summit in Wenatchee in October 2003.

"You could feel that documentary was touching people in that audience. It was almost a spiritual thing," Ikerd said.

"The sustainability movement isn't something that can be quantified in terms of numbers. It has to be described in people stories and that was what was compelling about this story. Guy made an abstract story real," Ikerd said.

The video was shown at a dozen film festivals across the country and in agricultural classes at universities. It aired on PBS in the Pacific Northwest in the fall of 2004 and later on The Documentary Channel. It was nominated for Northwest Emmy awards. It resonated with small farmers of various commodities struggling to save their spot in the marketplace. Evans and Howell received e-mails from farmers as far away as Texas and Florida.

"At the time, it was pretty big. It got all over the country and portrayed an industry in distress," said David Granatstein, a sustainable agriculture specialist at Washington State University Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee.

"Broken Limbs" was "dramatic, well done and grabbed people's attention," but shortly thereafter apple prices improved, the apple industry was no longer in distress and "it's hard to say if the video's impact hung on," said Granatstein, who was in the documentary.

Sustainability remains a goal and people are moving in that direction, but its definition is fuzzier, he said.

Fred Kirschenmann, distinguished fellow of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., said "Broken Limbs" was well done and articulated issues clearly. A lot of people he knew were moved by it, he said.

But it didn't change the world and industrialized agriculture isn't likely to change until it collapses from loss of cheap energy, fresh water and favorable climate, he said.

Instead of trying to change industrialized agriculture, people need to work on models to replace it when it collapses, Kirschenmann said.

Farm evolves

"Broken Limbs" left off with Denny Evans facing a $750,000 debt and foreclosure and Guy Evans spending the summer of 2003 working at his father's fruit stand, right below the orchard at the bottom of the hill where U.S. Highway 97A meets the crystal clear waters of Lake Chelan.

That summer he started thinking about how to take advantage of the orchard's gorgeous views of Lake Chelan and preserve at least some agricultural use.

Guy, whose mother is Washington state Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, had an electrical engineering degree from the University of Washington and was considering medical school.

"I had been struggling with how to apply myself, looking for a career to bring about positive social change," he said. "In the researching for the video, I realized a regional food system brings it all together for me."

Father and son joined forces and staved off foreclosure by selling some land they later bought back. They diversified the farm.

Their 100 acres ascend a hillside from the lake. Like many orchards in the region, it produced mostly Red and Golden Delicious apples for decades. There were a few Fuji and Braeburn.

Now 30 acres of apples remain with 25 leased to another grower. The 5 acres of apples operated by Sunshine Farm are mainly Honeycrisp. There are 3 acres of cherries and 2 acres of apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums. The soft fruit is uncertified organic and is sold at Sunshine Farm's fruit stand. The apples and cherries are conventional with 10 percent sold at the stand and 90 percent through Chelan Fruit Cooperative.

There are new uses for the land. Tunnel Hill Winery and winegrapes occupy 7 acres, 4 acres are planted with organic vegetables and 15 acres are used for raising grass-fed Black Angus beef, goats and llamas.

The market stand sells the farm's produce and that of neighboring farms. The farm has a community-supported agriculture program. There's U-pick, farm tours, farm day camps, summer picnic concerts and dancing. Guy plays the piano at the winery on Thursday afternoons.

"If Guy weren't here, this (whole farm) would probably be sold by now. Guy is great at working hard to keep the farm together," said Jaclyn Evans, Denny Evans' wife.

There are plans for a restaurant at the winery and a cultural and agricultural learning center.

Denny took winemaking classes and oversees the winery, grapes and tree fruit with Guy. Retail management is Guy's responsibility. His wife, Rachel, is in charge of finances, marketing and watches over the organic vegetables. There are three year-round and 11 seasonal employees.

"What we've done has allowed me to stay here and do the type of farming I like to do, some production agriculture, not the touchy-feely stuff," Denny said. "Guy likes the promotion and dream and scheme. I come back to reality. We work well together."

Wine is the biggest moneymaker. The farm is making a profit, but most of it goes to improvements.

For Denny's retirement, they are planning to do high-density residential clusters on about 50 acres interspersed throughout the 100 acres. The remaining farmland will be preserved, through zoning, for farming and at agricultural land values. Such intermingling of development and farm is being done elsewhere and is called New Ruralism. It taps into a desire by some consumers to live next to where the food they eat is grown.

Guy and Denny believe development pressure will only increase at Lake Chelan.

"There is a lot cheaper land to farm than our land. But to let go of our agricultural heritage and take a big check and go to Hawaii isn't a good thing either," Guy said.

He sees a middle path accommodating both. He wants to work with development to preserve some farmland. He envisions an integrated or polycultural farm, where crops and livestock are rotated to benefit each other, on the 50 acres that remains farm.

He takes strength from his great-grandfather's story.

"He was 45 when he started his orchard, pulling sagebrush with a team of horses. He had four kids. Just when his apricots started to bear in '31 and '32, this region bottomed out (because of the Great Depression). It always lags behind. In '32, he had five kids. So five kids, a young orchard and no money and he (made it work).

"He died in 1954. His son, my granddad, told me he wished his dad had lived a little longer to enjoy what this orchard became.

"My life is all gravy compared to that."

The new American farmer?

The new American farmer seeks to do right by the land and the community, including consumers and farmworkers, says Guy Evans, Chelan, Wash., farmer.

"In production agriculture, disparity of power between Anglos and Hispanic is potential for disrespect and lack of care. It's easy for that to happen," Evans said. "The new American farmer thinks of those who work for them and tries to take care of them, upgrade their housing."

"It's not just farming as a business or way to make a living, but farming as a complete way of life, physically, socially, ethically," said John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri.

"It includes making a living, but it's bigger than that. It's the ethical dimension of stewardship."

Evans agrees with author Michael Pollan's views that agribusiness is too centralized and has lost touch with natural farming cycles. He believes decentralized production, transportation and sales can better face looming challenges of energy and climate change.

Noting big tree fruit companies like Wenatchee's Stemilt Growers Inc. are only getting larger and that Wal-Mart and Monsanto are not getting any weaker, Evans said the development of regions growing their own food is embryonic and that he likes being a part of it.

-- Dan Wheat

New and old cross paths on the farm

Editorial

By The Capital Press

Denny Evans knows a lot about change. Seven years ago, the Chelan, Wash., apple grower became a victim of it.

His banker called his loan and his market dried up as apple packinghouses, facing competition from all directions, were forced to grow bigger and squeeze prices lower.

As price takers and with a mountain of debt hanging over them, many small-orchard owners like Evans were at the end of the economic line. The ground had shifted under their farms, and change had taken away their livelihoods.

Evans' son, Guy, documented the plight of his father and other apple growers in the film "Broken Limbs." It chronicled the many changes that had taken place in the apple industry. Once stable and profitable, the industry had been swept into the global marketplace. Facing low-cost overseas competitors and a domestic retail industry that itself was in the throes of change, the U.S. apple industry had to change or die.

Seven years later, the Evans family has embraced change. Far from being overtaken by events that they couldn't control, they have set their own course of developing direct markets and branching into growing grapes and making wine. To take advantage of the gorgeous views overlooking Lake Chelan, the family is even considering developing residential lots alongside its farming operation.

Capital Press reporter Dan Wheat last week wrote about all that has happened with the Evans family during the past seven years. What he found was heartening, a true-life story of a New American Farmer.

The term, coined by University of Missouri Professor Emeritus John Ikerd, describes farms that are ecologically sound, economically viable and socially responsible.

And a farmer who is willing to change.

Farmers should not feel as though they are alone in change. Every industry, from automobile manufacturing to newspaper publishing, is caught in a storm of change. Competition, consumer attitudes and any number of other factors have created change at a dizzying pace.

Along the way, many of those businesses that have not changed have died. The ones that have embraced change and looked for new ways to do business are surviving, and some are even thriving.

As is the case with all businesses, change is the only constant in agriculture. Farmers and ranchers need to find new ways to grow and market food and fiber. Sometimes those "new" ways more resemble older ways, and that works, too, as long as there's a market for the crop or product.

Any farm that has been in business for 100 years or longer has changed and changed again. No farmer or rancher is doing exactly the same things the same way as they were done a century before -- or even 10 years before.

The key for farmers is to identify their customers and meet their needs and expectations.

In that sense, the New American Farmers are a lot like the many generations of farmers who came before them.

Old or new, they embrace change and make it work for them.

Rachel Writes: Succession Planting

I was looking at the weather report early this morning.  98 degrees today!  But then by Saturday we’re supposed to be back down to 78 as a high.  Time to plant spinach, I thought.

We have a “Crop Book” that we’ve put together which lays out the plan for how and when we plant each of our vegetable crops.  Most planting dates are decided on in January and February.  On the spinach page, we set the first three spring planting dates by the calendar, but the fourth planting is a little more variable:  “Plant on the first cool spell in August,” it says.  We usually get one such cool spell and here it is.

Spinach doesn’t germinate well when the soil temperature is above 70 degrees.  Even though the air temperature won’t be quite that low, we might be able to keep the soil temperature down by shading the spinach bed with shade cloth on wire hoops, plus irrigating every day at least a bit.

It seems like kind of a lot of trouble, but spinach is a high value crop for us, which makes it worth it.  If this planting comes up, we should be harvesting spinach by the third week in September.

The next planting of spinach is scheduled for mid-September, when the soil has cooled down.  We’ll get one or two pickings off of it in late October and then leave it to sit during the winter.  Spinach is a hardy crop, which can survive winters here without any protection—though we may decide to throw some hoops and row cover over it to give it an extra boost.  In the spring, it will start to grow again, and we’ll be able to start harvesting in March or April.  We’ll also be putting some spinach in our high tunnel, which will give us something to harvest in the dead of winter.

The majority of our crops are planted multiple times a year.  The exceptions are things like pumpkins, eggplant, and peppers, which we only plant once.  But to keep a steady supply of vegetables coming out of the field, we have to plant most crops in multiple successions.  We plant salad mix and arugula every week; head lettuce and cilantro every other week; beans, carrots, and beets every three weeks; and so on.  We get a succession of corn by planting varieties with different maturation dates several times a year.

All this succession planting can get complicated, but it’s one of the things I like best about growing vegetables.  It keeps your mind engaged, while the physical work keeps your body engaged.  I love the challenge of keeping a consistent supply of  fresh vegetables on our shelves and in your CSA box. 

Right now we’re involved in the challenge of scheduling winter plantings in our high tunnel in order to extend the season as long as possible.  Renae is trying her hand at this plannint work this winter, so we’ll keep you updated on how she’s doing!  At the very least, we will be selling a 6 week winter share and it’s not too early to sign up for yours.  Through the deep of winter, I’m hoping we’ll be able to continue to provide boxes at least once in a while that contain fresh greens from our high tunnel….including some of that yummy spinach.

Succession Planting. You can see month-old beans on the left, brand new beans next to them, and Renae preparing a bed for yet another planting of beans. On the right is a young sucession of corn, while another sucession grows in the field in the background.

Guy Writes: Synergy on the Farm

The talk referenced in this article can be found on the TED talks website (www.ted.com). If you haven’t discovered TED talks yet, let me pause to remark on their extraordinary quality. Here I live in a rural part of Washington state and have access to some of the best minds alive – thanks to TED and a good high speed internet connection. Check it out. It’s perfect when doing dishes!

Last night, I listened to a talk by Michael Pollan on the internet.  He discussed the value of working synergistically with nature and offered up his poster-boy farmer, Joel Salatin, as an example of such synergy.  Michael’s talk wasn’t new material for me.  I’ve already read about chicken-tractors, salad-bar beef, and Joel Salatin’s “Polyface Farm” in numerous books and articles.  

This attention has bought Joel considerable fame and while he has been basking in his new limelight, I’ve been in the bilge of our own farm ship just fighting to keep things afloat.  Lofty ideas that come wrapped up with words like “synergy” don’t offer much relief to those on the bucket brigade.  Which is to say, my eyes have glazed over these past few years when people start talking “new systems” in agriculture.  I just want a system that pays the bills.

The good news is that even in the midst of this economic downturn, our farm is chugging along.  Dad always said that people have to eat.   Turns out he was right.  And so, last night, I found myself listening to Pollan with a bit of fresh perspective.   Diving into the grubby details of exactly what he means by “synergy” is material for a farm walk or conference session, but let me say that the basic idea is that all the units on the farm work together.  Waste goes into compost goes onto crops.  Crops go into products go into kitchens. Sun goes into grass goes into animals goes into kitchens.  And so on. 

Salatin calls his place “Polyface” because it is a farm with so many sides.  The Sunshine Farm and Tunnel Hill Winery easily falls into the polyface camp.  Our work to date has been to develop these many sides – the winery, the vegetables, the beef, the U-Pick, the CSA.  Our work ahead will be to link them up, to take the product from one and feed it to the next.  To take the waste from one and fertilize the next. 

We’ve started doing this just a little.  We now sell our grass-fed beef in the market.  (Previously it was available only by the quarter or half.)  And with the new wine cooler in the market, sales of Tunnel Hill Pinot, Riesling, and Syrah have picked up nicely.  A small seasonal restaurant is on the horizon for the winery, which will feature the fresh product coming in from the fields.

But even beyond these rather obvious links, there are others less visible links to be made. The Sunshine Farm needs a bonafide composting program.  I don’t have ambitions of producing all of our own fertility, but I would like to take our existing waste and make a high-grade compost for the veggie fields.  The Sunshine Farm needs a bona fide pasture management system.  Right now we turn the four-legged creatures loose and they eat wherever and whatever they want.  This has led to some degraded pasture sorely in need of rehabilitation.  The list is long. 

One thing I’ve learned since moving back to the farm in 2003: it is really easy to make lists like this.  But it takes time and money to implement.  That’s probably why I’ve been so distant to these basic yet challenging ideas.  Composting and pasture management don’t yield immediate results.  They are investments in the long-term health of the soil.  But it is hard to think long-term in the midst of crisis.

Thankfully, I feel like we have weathered the worst of our farm’s crisis.  Regrettably, I know there are other farms who are in the midst of the storm, or who have yet to enter.  Certainly the phrase, ‘steady as she goes’ has new meaning to me now.  Despite the forces that push and pull, the critical piece of survival and prosperity seems to be staying steady, staying focused, regardless of the gales.

And so I’ll raise my hand now; a little weather-beaten and worn, but still standing, with resources to boot.  “Yes, Mr. Pollan, I’d like to synergize.”  Stay tuned for more.