About 150 people loaded up on buses and took to the highway to get an upclose and personal look at San Benito County agriculture Wednesday.
They were part of the organic farming bus tour sponsored by the 38th annual EcoFarm Conference at Asilomar Conference Center.
This year the tour focused on organic farming in San Juan Bautista, Hollister and Tres Pinos.
Participants held baby goats, sampled goat milk products, learned about grass-fed beef, visited a vegetable processing and cooling hub and saw how farmers use innovation to make their business more efficient.
Some of the vegetables tour participants enjoyed at lunchtime at the San Benito Historical Society Historical Park south of Tres Pinos actually came from one of the farms they visited.
Agriculture is still the largest industry in San Benito County, with a gross crop value of $367,450,000 in 2016, nearly $7 million higher than the previous year. The county has 78 certified registered organic growers, growing on about 31,500 acres. Rangeland makes up 22,000 of the total organic acreage.
The three bus loads of tourists made their first stop about 9:30 a.m. at Coke Farm, in San Juan Bautista. Owners Dale and Christine Coke have been farming since 1981.
When they first started, Dale Coke used a washing machine to spin and dry leaf lettuce. The business has come a long way since then. It now operates as a hub for more than 50 Hollister area organic growers.
Dale Coke was among the first growers involved in the Leafy Green Marketing Board, a food safety initiative in response to the deadly spinach e. coli outbreak in 2006.
Vegetables are washed, packaged, stored in large coolers and shipped from the hub. Coke Farms also helps growers with preparing reports.
During a walk through the coolers, visitors saw sunchokes, celery root, squash and turnips waiting to be shipped. And they experienced how nippy tempuratures are inside coolers. They range from 34 degrees to the low 40s.
Next stop: Mudstone Ranch at Hollister Hills SVRA, a unit of the California State Parks system. The park at 7800 Cienega Road works cooperatively with cattle ranching. In this case it’s Morris Grassfed company of San Juan Bautista, owned by Julie and Joe Morris.
After hiking up a hill above the parking lot, tour members learned about the park and grassfed beef. The park has about 200 acres of grasslands, explained Scott Soares, environmental scientist with the park. They create buffer zones between the recreational vehicle areas of the park. The grasslands, Soares said, are also used for hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking.
Grazing can be a benefit to managing the park’s environment, Soares said. It’s becoming more accepted by the park system. Rotating cattle in and out of various pastures, Soares said, helps manage invasive species of plants, such as medusahead and yellow star thistle and keeps down fire danger.
Joe and Julie Morris began leasing land from the park for grazing certified organic beef in 1994.
“I saw it as one community and managing to benefit the whole community …,” Joe Morris said. “What we do know is that the values that are inherent in that land are important to everyone.”
Morris said that includes cleaner air and water.
“There are far more lives here that are dependent on what we are doing than just the cows,” Morris said. “We try to do this in a community way.”
He pulled out as grazing plan for the 353 cattle at the park to show the tour members.
Julie Morris said grassfed been is leaner, has fewer calories and more omega-3 fatty acids.
During the talks, about 100 head of cattle came off the hills and down to the parking lot area. The Morris’s dogs Buster and Bernie went into action herding them back to where they came from.
“Alright, which cow has the cell phone in his ear to tell it which way it should go?” one member of the tour quipped.
After learning about the benefits of grassfed beef, at least one member of the tour expected something other than a vegan lunch of mixed leaf lettuce salad, vegetable soup and berry cobbler.
“Gee, I thought we were going to have hamburgers after visiting that grassfed beef farm,” the man said.
Any thoughts of burgers were no doubt lost after the tour stopped at Evergreen Acres Dairy, a goat dairy in Tres Pinos. There, they sampled raw goat milk, goat milk custard, ginger kefir ale and deviled duck eggs.
The farm also makes a variety goat milk cheeses.
Owners Jane and Mike Hulme moved their farm from Santa Clara County to Tres Pinos five years ago. They operate the only Grade A dairy goat herd in California consisting mainly of Guernsey goats, which originated on the British Channel Island of Guernsey.
Their goat milk, Mike Hulme said, has high butterfat content and does not have the “goaty” taint associated with other goat’s milk. He said raw goat’s milk is easier to digest and is great for people who are lactose intolerant.
The farm is a member of the Golden Guernsey Breeders of America and the British Goat Society.
Tour participants ooed and awed over a group of kids (baby goats), picking them up and cuddling them.
The Hulmes explained that their large, vocal white Great Pyrenees dogs protect the farm’s goat herd from predators, including mountain lions.
To supplement the farm’s income, especially during times when fewer goats are giving milk, the farm has a duck egg operation. Duck eggs, Mike Hulme said, have less cholesterol than chicken eggs.
“We try to grow everything here,” Jane Hulme said.
The last stop on the tour was Pinnacle Organic Produce in the outskirts of Hollister. It is the largest to two organic farms operated by Phil and Katherine Foster. Their other farmland is in San Juan Bautista.
The Santa Ana Valley Road property is on 300 acres of leased land. The farms produce between 50 and 60 different crops during the year. They include onions, garlic, lettuce, cherries, apples, figs, plums and mellons.
“The onions grown on this farm are phenomenal,” said tour facilitator Amigo Bob Cantisano.
Foster, who started farming in 1988, is known for his innovative farming techniques. The farm uses solar power, makes its own compost, uses cover crops to improve the soil and also uses biodiesel and a biodiesel-diesel mixture in its vehicles.
A farm employee fired up a tractor that runs a machine that turns windrows of composting material to promote the aerobic composting process. The farm uses tons of it.
After looking at a new type of cover crop Foster is trying, tour members headed for the buses. It was after 5 p.m. The wind had picked up and dark clouds were moving in from the northwest. By the time the buses reached Hollister it was raining, giving all those fields another needed sprinkle.
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