West Marin’s multi-generational farmers who established the county as a flagship for sustainable, organic farming face plenty of challenges. But small-scale farmers who lease their land face unique obstacles and rely on both crops and other income streams to survive drought, labor shortages, and a food industry still reeling from the pandemic.
“It’s about not putting all my eggs in one basket,” said Mickey Murch, a second-generation farmer in Bolinas who owns 40 percent of the land he farms on. “I’ve diversified my soil portfolio.”
According to a 2017 census by the United States Department of Agriculture, of the 343 farms in Marin County, a quarter were less than 10 acres and 21 percent generated less than $2,500. While larger farms often have steady income from wholesale buyers, many small-time farmers depend on farmers markets, farm stands and local restaurants.
Recent drought years have challenged all farmers, as irrigation ponds ran dry and growers had to truck in water. About half of Marin’s 150 acres of cropland was fallowed in 2021.
Most have shifted their business strategies after years of drought, labor shortages and pandemic-induced restaurant closures. And although heavy storms last winter brought needed moisture, they also damaged essential infrastructure and flooded fields.
Earlier this month, Molly Myerson, owner of Little Wing Farm outside Point Reyes Station, announced a six-month closure of the three-acre vegetable farm she leases at the base of Black Mountain. Ms. Myerson said the decision to take an extended break stemmed from difficulties in finding skilled workers—a problem she blamed on the housing shortage.
During the hiatus, she plans to make infrastructure upgrades and explore new avenues of income, including offering gardening and landscape consultations. The closure means that two of her three employees will lose their jobs and, in one case, their housing.
“I’ve been farming for 10 years now, and it’s always been hard to find people to work on the farm when there’s few affordable places to live,” Ms. Myerson said. “We’ve had a lot of staffing issues this year, which has meant that, as the owner, it’s my responsibility to pick up any slack. I just can’t do that. It’s not sustainable for anybody, especially for a physically and psychologically demanding job like farming.”
Ms. Myerson and her crew normally take a break in December and January, but this time, she won’t open back up until August. She relies almost entirely on the profits of a farm stand on Point Reyes-Petaluma Road that operates on an honor system. While her margins have never been high, at 42 years old, she said her future in farming is uncertain.
“You have to sell a lot to make enough money to pay everyone,” she said. “It was fine living hand-to-mouth in my 20s, but I’m not that young anymore and I’m looking at my life and the kind of security I want to have and asking hard questions about what it will take to have a lifestyle that is very modest but with at least some level of security and comfort. I want to be able to pay my workers a living wage, and that’s increasingly hard because of how expensive it is to live here.”
Although no vegetables will be found at Ms. Myerson’s farm stand until August, she will keep one of her workers on to tend her flower beds. Her two other employees will be laid off this month.
The difficulties of sustaining a small farm are echoed by Scott Fleeman-Chang, a 29-year-old who operated Shao Shan Farms in Bolinas from 2019 until 2022, when he moved to Sonoma. After the last growing season, Mr. Fleeman-Chang decided to shut down his operation and pivot to a new career.
“I still would love to get back into farming, but at this point, realistically, if I’m ever trying to buy a house anywhere in California, I can’t afford to keep running my own business,” he said. “If you think about how many units of $3 bunches of veggies you need to sell to pay rent on a one-bedroom house in the North Bay, the math just doesn’t work.”
Mr. Murch, who is 39, leases roughly nine acres from various entities across his hometown of Bolinas. He owns an additional six acres of land that often flood in winter. Leasing the other plots allows him to weather the wet years, but renting also leaves him vulnerable. Mr. Murch’s most fertile field consists of three acres on the Tacherra ranch, where he said his future there may be in peril due to changing ownership and plans for the ramshackle property.
“That’s what’s nerve-wracking about leasing land: when it changes hands, you feel a bit vulnerable to getting kicked out,” he said. “It’s an amazing field and although it needs a lot of work, it’s provided the most vegetables because it’s got great sun exposure during the winter, when sunlight is at a premium. It’s really hard for a young farmer to have one lease and have everything riding on that. It’s like, ‘Okay, am I going to invest in this long-term project of building this soil if I’m not going to be able to farm there in 10 years?’”
Arron Wilder, the 47-year-old owner and operator of Table Top Farms in Point Reyes Station, diversified with multiple plots over the past 10 years he’s been in business. But last November, he lost the help of his farmhands, and he scaled back from planting 18 acres to just four. He said he’s had to restructure his business more than once since the pandemic began, but an array of income streams and growing opportunities have kept him afloat.
“I diminished how much I sold this year, but since I had little overhead, it was fine,” he said. “No employees, low investment and little bills.”
Like Ms. Myerson, Mr. Wilder leases land on Black Mountain Ranch, though he also has four other plots around town. For a decade, he supplied his two local farm stands, two grocery stores, 12 restaurants and his own community supported agriculture program, a C.S.A.—a subscription-based program in which farmers sell directly to consumers through a weekly produce box.
Until the pandemic, restaurant sales made up 80 percent of Mr. Wilder’s profit, but many of his customers closed or scaled back during the pandemic and have since hired new chefs. Fortunately, his C.S.A grew during the same time as second-home owners waited out the pandemic in West Marin. The subsequent loss of these “pandemic residents” has hit hard.
Then, last winter, Mr. Wilder’s two farmhands stopped working due to back injuries, and winter storms damaged his deer fence and greenhouse.
“It’s just me these days,” he said. “I started growing field crops because they’re easier to maintain.”
Crops such as corn, delicata squash, snow peas, zucchini, beans, sunflowers and barley are more lucrative and manageable for him now. Barley, which he harvests with a combine, is used to make tea, which will soon be available at his farm stand on Cypress Road.
Leasing the land he grows on affords him financial flexibility. This season, his overhead is low since he is investing in less land and does not need to hire employees or rent as much equipment. Although he still maintains 14 acres that aren’t planted, he said he does not have plans to start growing on them any time soon.
“I’ll probably expand back, but it’s really based on figuring out how to sell the produce again,” he said. “If the market for C.S.A.s comes back, then I probably will. I’m just shifting my strategy at this point.”
For now, Mr. Wilder will navigate what looks like a never-ending restructure. He has considered bringing in a business partner to share labor and income, and last year, he received help from a nonprofit focused on agriculture education. He’s also hoping to operate on a contract basis with a wholesale buyer, whereby the buyer would pay half up front for a set amount of product.
Mr. Wilder is also seeking a nonprofit to act as his fiscal sponsor for a Food, Agriculture, and Resilient Ecosystems Grant offered through the county’s Measure A program. Funding for the grant program has nearly doubled since it was established in October, and applicants can request grants up to $200,000.
Jesse and Moira Kuhn, 49 and 43, run Marin Roots Farm in Hicks Valley and additional plots across Marin and Sonoma Counties. Before 2020, they farmed 45 acres, supplying produce and seasonal products to restaurants in San Francisco. But as the drought reached its peak, the pandemic hit, shuttering most of their restaurants and forcing them to fallow 99.5 percent of their land, reducing the operation to just a quarter-acre.
These days, the Kuhns farm on 15 acres, primarily relying on specialty crops that are easier to manage like culinary herbs, leafy greens, microgreens and flowers. They make most of their income from year-round farmers markets in Central Marin and San Francisco. They also sell to FEED Sonoma, a food cooperative that sells to large establishments like hotels, hospitals and tech companies.
Although the couple hopes to one day buy their own land, for now they enjoy not having to pay property taxes and being able to invest sparsely in infrastructure for smaller fields.
“Whether you lease or own land in California, each model has its pros and cons,” Ms. Kuhn said. “You definitely have to be strategic with your income strategies.”