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090: Lucila De Alejandro of Suzie’s Farm on Saying Yes, Getting Smaller, and Getting Workers and Community to Invest in the Farm

10/27/2016

Lucila de Alejandro owns and operates Suzie’s Farm with her husband, Robin Taylor. Located three miles from the Pacific Ocean and three miles from the Mexican border, Suzie’s Farm got its start in 2004, and has provided fresh, organic produce to the San Diego area through a CSA, farmers markets, and sales to restaurants and grocers.

As a 70-acre urban farm, Suzie’s Farm provides a rare blend of tractor-scale farming just minutes from the urban core, and Lucila and Robin leveraged their geography and scale to grow rapidly as the local food scene in San Diego took off – but when that local food scene leveled off, they were faced with making hard decisions to save the farm and their relationship.

Lucila shares the process they used for making those hard decisions, including a technique with the acronym POEM. We also dig into how she and Robin have created a loyal workforce that carries Lucila’s energy and enthusiasm out into the community, how they use farm tours to engage the community and build their customer base, and how vegetable farming works in the Mediterranean climate of San Diego.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

Quotes from the Show

It’s not just the food that nourishes the people, it’s the space.

I realized that one acre wasn’t going to cut it.

There are few things as heart-wrenching as laying off your employees.

Cash-in-hand feels real the way that when you pull that strawberry off the vine and you bite into it and you're tasting the juices and you're crunching on those seeds and that flavor is bursting in your mouth… that’s the fruit of your labor.

One of our biggest failures was keeping up with demand, both actual and perceived.

I’m a much better farmer than I was at the beginning because of the failures.

The opportunity within every failure is greater than the failure because that’s where the growth is.

We left everything on the table for the farm, and we didn’t have anything left for each other.

Make sure that you remember that you are also a living, growing thing, and you want to make sure that you have everything you need in order to bear good fruit.

We don’t have customers. We have clients.

[when Lucila and her marketeers are selling produce…] It is not solely a transaction. It is an exchange of humanity.

There is a human engagement that happens in the farmer's market where you are able to give people the gift of their humanity through removing fear and engaging them in faith or hope or encouragement.

You think it’s just vegetables, but the vegetables are just the gateway drug. The real deal is encouraging people to step out of their comfort zone, to try something new.

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089: David Hambleton of Sisters Hill Farm on Keeping Things Simple and Making Systems for a Productive, Happy Farm

10/20/2016

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David Hambleton manages Sisters Hill Farm in Standfordville, New York. David says he has five acres in production, but it’s worth noting that with what seems like typical attention to the details, that’s five acres of ground actually growing vegetables – he figures he’s got another four acres in field roads and other grass areas around the farm. All of Sisters Hill’s produce is sold through a market-style CSA.

Sister Hills’ CSA program has maintained an 80% retention rate by selling the farm experience as well as the vegetables, and we dig into the details of how he’s created a farm that provides a peaceful, relaxing, and community-oriented experience for its members, as well as for David and his apprentices.

David shares how he’s designed the farm so that it serves him rather than him serving the farm. We dig in to his apprenticeship program, how David has created his own tools to solve little bottlenecks, his design for weed control from soil prep through mechanical cultivation, and more – including how the management and teaching structures he has put in place helped the farm survive David’s two surgeries in the past year.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

Farmers Web: Making it simple for farms and food businesses to work with wholesale buyers. Streamlining wholesale ordering and operations makes it easier to work with your buyers, creating more successful relationships and increasing your capacity.

Quotes from the Show

I’ve striven from the beginning to have the farm be economically viable and self-supporting.

When you need to answer a question in your life or in your work, you can look outside yourself, you can look within yourself, or you can make up an answer.

What is the little bottleneck here? What is something that I’m doing every day that takes ten minutes that if I created a solution for it might take one minute?

I put a lot of energy into making those [processes] more ergonomically feasible for us.

I work reasonable hours. It’s not just because I’m an employee, but rather because I set up the farm so that we can get the work done in those hours.

I’ve designed the farm so that it serves my life and not so that I am a servant to the farm.

There’s a lot of negativity around CSA. And I feel that part of the reason that these people don’t see CSA as a viable marketing opportunity anymore is because they’re just thinking of it as strictly that – as a marketing opportunity, whereas I’m thinking of it from the perspective of my customer and trying to create community.

When the farm is beautiful and the farm is neat, we feel like we’re really professional.

Work should be fun. Absolutely.

I spend more effort hiring great people each year than any other thing.

People, to feel successful, need to feel a certain sense of autonomy, they need to feel like they’re moving towards something in the future, and it’s nice if there’s a sense of community as well.

Because the farm doesn’t demand everything of me, I feel much more fulfilled and happy and balanced.

Drop-off sites are so much less reliable [than doing a market-style CSA] in terms of trying to create customer satisfaction and member retention.

I don’t consider that we are just selling vegetables; I consider that we are selling that entire experience.

Show Links

David and I talked a lot about Paul and Sandy Arnold – Paul was one of my first guests on the Farmer to Farmer Podcast.

David participates in the C.R.A.F.T. (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), a cooperative effort of local organic farms to enhance educational opportunities for farm apprentices.

David cited Stephen Covey’s discussion of production versus productive capacity in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – a book we both recommend!

We talked about the CSA Farmer Discussion https://www.facebook.com/groups/csafarmers/ group on Facebook, a great resource for CSA farmers.

David’s new Facebook group is Farming Balance. https://www.facebook.com/groups/farmingbalance/

David’s favorite tool is the DMT Folding Sharpener. Plus, here’s an instructional video that David put together on how to use it.

A long time ago I lead David towards a book called Whale Done, about creating a positive work environment. It’s a pretty cool book.

David sent along a link to a recent garlic planting video that includes the row marker and plant spacing marker that he uses.

David also sent some pictures of the lift table he uses in the packing house. Here it is under construction:

And here it is when completed:

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088: Lily Schneider and Matt Mccue of Shooting Star CSA on Unusual Choices and Unusual Histories

10/13/2016

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Lily Schneider and Matt Mccue raise fifteen acres of vegetables at Shooting Star CSA in Fairfield, California, just 35 miles from Berkeley on the edge of the Central Valley. Along with four employees, they provide vegetables for a 250-member CSA plus three farmers markets.

Matt and Lily have a couple of unique twists on their CSA operation, making the unusual choice in their area to not operate year-round, as well as to focus on guiding members towards purchasing a full-season, rather than monthly, CSA share.

We dig into these choices, as well as their histories before starting their own farm, how they found land and why they’ve chosen to stick with leasing, how they’ve worked to distinguish their CSA program from box-schemes, and how they use field preparation, bed layout, and a couple of cool tools to stay on top of the weeds.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

(Matt) Starting the farm in 2009 I felt like a post-apocalyptic scavenger… we were sifting the ruins of the great recession.

(Lily) Being able to be a farm manager on a farm that we didn’t own [meant that] all the mistakes we made were on somebody else’s dime.

(Matt) You can be a bad farmer, but you can’t be a bad marketer.

(Matt) If you’re going to cruise the internet, cruise the web soil survey, find the good soil that in good enough proximity to your market, and boot scoot around and knock on doors.

(Matt) You have to create serendipity for yourself.

(Matt) [Selling a subscription on a] month-to-month basis… creates a casual relationship between the customer and the farm.

(Lily) Getting beyond the size that we’re at [250 shares] it gets harder and harder to be able to differentiate yourself because you have less and less of a personal connection with each CSA member.

(Matt) There’s a lot of good reasons to go year-round, but there’s a lot of reasons to stay seasonal, as well.

(Matt) [The CSA survey] directly affects the crop plan, which gives our crop plan a direct link to the needs and desires of the CSA member.

(Matt) I’d rather lease a farm on flat land than buy marginal land and try to farm that.

Show Links

Matt and Lily met in the apprentice program at the University of California – Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Matt and Lisa use Survey Monkey to manage their CSA member feedback survey.

Shooting Star uses fertilizer from California Organic Fertilizers.

Matt and Lily love their finger weeder, a tool which was introduced to them by Nigel Walker of nearby Eatwell Farm. Finger weeders are available from K.U.L.T. and Sutton Ag Enterprises.

Shoot Star CSA uses CSA Ware to manage their membership.

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087: Simon Huntley of Small Farm Central on Farm Marketing

10/6/2016

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Simon Huntley is the founder and developer at Small Farm Central, a technology company focused on farming business success with a website builder designed for small farms, a CSA member management and sales solution, and more. Simon is also the author of the new book, Cultivating Customers.

Small Farm Central grew out of Simon’s work with an expanding CSA program in western Colorado. Simon got into online marketing before e-commerce was cool, and definitely before its use was widespread in the farming community. And serving over a thousand direct-marketing farmers, Small Farm Central and Simon have a lot of direct contact with what’s working and what isn’t in the direct-to-consumer marketplace.

We dig into the world of marketing and relationship-building for small farms, including how to apply the marketing funnel concept in your farm marketing, how to build trust and create a sense of authenticity with your customers, what to do with your website to get customers engaged with your farm, how to get your customers to open your email newsletters, and much, much more.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

That moment when they throw [the contents of their share] away, that’s when they decide they’re not going to join a CSA again.

If we compete with grocery stores, we lose.

We’re never going to get a certain place where we’re done and everything’s perfect.

It’s not about what you want for farm, it’s about building your products and services around what your customers want.

It has to be about more than just a box of food… the food has to be infused with your story.

It’s not about taking a picture of the farm with no people in it and posting that on Facebook and expecting it to get engagement.

A farm without marketing is just a big compost pile.

Growing things is just part of what we do as farmers.

Show Links

Simon’s new book is Cultivating Customers.

Simon’s company is Small Farm Central, which includes the website builder, FarmFan, MemberAssembler, and a variety of free resources for farmers.

Simon spent some time WWOOFing after college – I’ve always known it as Willing Workers on Organic Farms, but they seem to have changed t heir name to World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

The CSA Farming Annual Report is available on the Member Assembler website (scroll to the bottom of the page).

The CSA Solutions Hub has a number of great resources for CSA farmers.

Small Farm Central organizes the Facebook Group, “CSA Farmer Discussion.” It’s a great, closed, no-customers group where questions often get ten to twenty responses within a couple of hours. This link goes to form you can fill out to apply for the group.

Simon cited a study by Ryan Galt about why CSA members don’t renew their shares.

Simon’s Farm Marketing Minute is an occasional email that you can use to help promote your farm market.

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