"Tara Firma Farms" in Sonoma County

2013-07-31 "Life on the Farm: E-I-E-I ...Oh?"
by SANDY KEENAN from "New York Times" [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/garden/life-on-the-farm-e-i-e-i-oh.html]:
Petaluma, Calif. — Tara Smith does not mind squealing on herself about the mistakes she has made since becoming a farmer at 47.
Early on, she kept the runts of a litter of pigs, not realizing they could not survive beyond a few months, even with all her nurturing. And at day’s end, utterly spent, she would scramble around like a madwoman trying to catch the chickens to get them safely inside their hilltop shelters, a frantic dance that did not stop until a neighboring farmer patiently explained that they would go in on their own once the sun set.
 “I hold responsibility for everything on this land,” Ms. Smith said. “And at first, I didn’t know how any of it worked.”
 Spend time on her 300-acre spread here in Sonoma County — an old dairy farm with an 1860s farmhouse — and the former marketing and sales executive will confide in her rambling but charming way that, yes, farming is hard, but it can be awe-inspiring, too.
 “The most amazing thing happens when a sow is in labor down in the farrowing pen,” she said. “The laying hens will go and gather round her and make sure to drop an egg right near her face for a little added protein to keep her energy up. How cool is that?”
 This year marks the fifth growing season for the no-longer-quite-as-fledgling Tara Firma Farms, the Smith family’s modest-size yet ambitious outfit devoted to raising happy pigs, cattle and chickens, all plumped up on the lush perennial grasses in the open pastures. The Smiths are practicing biodynamic (or beyond organic) farming, which is essentially its own confined ecosystem designed to prosper without relying on any of the fertilizers, pharmaceuticals or hormones that have become so prevalent in industrial-size operations.
 As Ms. Smith put it, in a slightly oversimplified way: “We’re growing the soil that grows the grass that feeds the animals.”
 It began innocently enough. She wasn’t looking to upend her comfortable suburban existence. Reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” the best-selling 2006 book by Michael Pollan, was just an assignment for a new parents’ night discussion at the private high school that Jake, one of her children, was attending.
 But Ms. Smith was riveted by the graphic depictions of big agriculture’s reliance on drugs to grow animals bigger as quickly as possible and to stave off diseases caused by the miserable conditions American livestock is often raised in.
 Taking it all in, she said, she felt nauseated — and worse still, uninformed. Turning to her husband, Craig Smith, she said, “We’re smart people, how come we didn’t know this?”
 From then on, she said, she spoke of little else: “I was obsessed.”
 Things got so bad that her newfound obsession began interfering with her children’s social lives. That’s when her son Joey, who was then 9, issued an ultimatum that has become part of the family lore. “Mom, no one invites us to dinner anymore because you scare them,” he said. “Either stop talking about food, or do something.”
 So she compromised: she decided to keep talking and do something, never stopping to consider the cost of land around here. Or that beyond their abundant marketing and business savvy, neither she nor her husband had any relevant expertise — or agricultural or animal husbandry experience of any kind, for that matter.
 The farm, which is about 40 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, cost $3.9 million, but the Smiths were able to get an open-space easement, financed through county sales tax initiatives, that returned $2.2 million, on the condition that their land never be developed. But with all the other start-up costs (infrastructure, machinery and initial livestock outlay), they still needed to borrow $5 million.
 And they had no choice but to move their melded family of four sons (two his, two hers) from the home they adored, nine miles away in suburban Novato, overlooking a lagoon. Home is now a cramped antique farmhouse with a treacherously pitched stairwell and a bland 1970s addition off the back.
 The first time she visited the property, Ms. Smith refused to get out of the car. “The house was just awful,” she said. “And the place was strewn with garbage.”
But the land was great, and it was close to town, which was important for their walk-in business. To convince loan officers that their plan for the farm would fly, she invited them out to walk the land with her. “I flirted with one of them so much that finally, he took me aside and said, ‘Although I’m flattered, you should know that I’m gay,’ ” Ms. Smith recalled.
While his wife is a natural-born schmoozer, Mr. Smith, 56, an engineer by training, is calm and exacting. He continues to work two insurance jobs, consulting for one company and as a co-owner of another, while serving as the farm’s chief financial officer. He is constantly pressing the dozen or so staff members and his wife to reduce costs by looking for clean-energy alternatives. “Can’t we find a used electric truck?” he urged a group of managers who had convened at the dining room table on a Tuesday morning.
 The couple persuaded Kim Galatola, a friend who is a former Waldorf School principal, to help them with problem-solving and procurement. That might seem odd at first, given that she is a devoted vegan. But as she said, shrugging: “The animals here only have one bad day. I don’t hold it against Tara.”
 Asked what Ms. Smith has given up for farming, she answered a little too quickly: “Her sanity.”
 Modeled on the sustainable agriculture practiced by Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms in the Shenandoah Valley, which was featured in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Tara Firma is an example of community-supported agriculture, or a C.S.A. That means that apart from selling aged beef and fresh produce to walk-in customers at a country store in their front yard, the Smiths deal directly only with households and restaurants that sign on as members and receive boxes of the farm’s bounty at regular intervals.
 Recruiting those members is an area in which Ms. Smith excels, having managed, organized and rallied people for decades, at companies like Microsoft and General Electric. A recent Sunday afternoon talk at a local health club resulted in a dozen new household contracts, enough to break the 1,000-member threshold for the first time.
 Tara Firma’s food is not supermarket-cheap, that’s for sure. A good-size fresh roasting chicken will set you back $28. “And we still can’t keep them in stock,” Ms. Smith said. Even so, the expense is the reason most often cited when memberships are canceled.
 The Smiths knew this would be risky and difficult, but they didn’t realize it would swallow their lives. They have little or no privacy and rarely take a day off. As Mr. Smith said: “We have extended ourselves physically, emotionally and financially more than I ever expected. But we’re teetering on the brink of breaking even.”
 At the current rate of growth, he said, the farm could be “clearly profitable in a few years.”
 And for Ms. Smith, who is now 52, there has been an unexpected upside: She has lost 30 pounds and gained musculature at a point in life when most women are doing the opposite.
 Of course, the manicures and designer clothing she loved when she had a corporate job are a thing of the past. These days, her wardrobe consists mostly of jeans and mud boots. “And just look at these horrible man-hands,” she said, showing off her calluses.
 When she can’t sleep, she straps on her miner’s headlamp and heads out to check on the animals, with Roland, her mixed-breed herding dog, at her side. “It’s both cool and creepy to see 100 red eyeballs all shining at you, coming in closer and tighter,” she said of the moment when the cattle sense her presence in the dark.
 Her nonstop patter — directed at anyone who visits the farm, in hopes of signing them up as members — is a folksy combination of a TED talk on the environment and Dr. Phil-style commentary on subjects like parenting and the perils of excessive consumerism. When she’s not explaining how the huge compost pile is practically volcanic at 183 degrees, she is telling stories about the sexual proclivities of pigs or making fun of her own early bungling, like the time she set a trap for the predator terrorizing her baby chicks and wound up catching the family cat instead.
 What crushes the spirit of risk-takers like herself is another favorite topic. She urges visitors to “just turn off the dang television,” blaming the constant media barrage. “Who would ever take a chance on creating something like this and trying something new,” she asked, “with all that negative input barking at you all the time?”
 A few minutes later, though, she had careened off in another direction.
 “If I ever open my big mouth again and say I want to try something new,” she told her husband, “please just lock me in a closet.”