This Is Not Dad’s Farm

Laura Avery
Mirror contributing writer

   Jim Terrick’s maternal grandfather and great uncle farmed the old-fashioned way. As they had done in their native Greece, the brothers grew red grapes on non-trellised vines which grew in enormous tangles on dry land that they did not irrigate. Out of these hardy grapes they made traditional Greek wine. Jim’s great uncle handled the post war wonder product, DDT, with his bare hands, scooping up handfuls of the white powder to apply to his vines for pest control. Jim’s grandfather, who was a heavy chain smoker, died at the age of 75. His great uncle never smoked a day in his life but he died of leukemia at age 65. As Jim grew up and studied farming in college, he couldn’t help but make the connection between the heavy use DDT and his beloved uncle’s early death. 
   Jim’s degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1976 was in animal science with the idea that he would continue on to become a veterinarian. During his undergraduate years, he found that he was attracted to soils; their composition and complexity were a fascinating field of study. Like most Cal Poly grads, however, Jim found himself channeled inexorably into a job in industrial agriculture. His first post grad job was to sell cleaning and sanitation chemicals to major dairies — huge operations run like corporations with their focus on profitability and the bottom line. He was appalled by the treatment of factory farm animals, which he had studied in his animal science classes but which he now witnessed first hand, and he decided to make a career change.
   By enrolling in an ag business program at Cal Poly Pomona, Jim gained the requisite training to become an ag loan officer for the Production Credit Association which specialized in making loans to small farmers. In 1988 he went to work for Irvine-based farmer Glen Tanaka, who was working 25 acres leased from the ubiquitous Irvine Company. Jim liked working on the farm and became absorbed with his soil studies and experiments with fertility. He read books, attended farm conferences and began taking Glen’s produce to area farmers’ markets. By 1991, Jim was able to lease three small growing areas in Irvine and his first project was to try to grow strawberries on some very poor soil. Determined to avoid the use of chemical pesticides, Jim tried using beneficial insects for bug control but found that he needed to rely on fertilizers to get his plants to grow. By the time he stopped farming on his own in 1997, he had learned the valuable lesson that no amount of artificial inputs could overcome the disadvantages of nutrient-depleted soils.
   Neighbor Glen had seen Jim working away in his fields and finally approached him with an offer to go in as partners on a 28-acre property which was part of a conservation easement. As such, the land could not be taken out of cultivation without going to a city-wide referendum, so Jim and Glen got what they both wanted –- a long term commitment to a piece of growing ground. Glen offered to let Jim run his experimental organic program on the land with the understanding that part of the produce would go to supply Glen’s three roadside stands and the rest Jim could send to farmers’ markets. Right away Jim began to prepare the land for strawberries. He started with a crop rotation system in which berries were grown from February to July and followed by successive crops of lettuce, broccoli, beets, onions corn, olallieberries and onions. As the soil improved and crop production increased, Jim saw life returning to the earth in the form of wriggling earthworms and loose, crumbly dirt. 
   “Taste testers” are what Jim calls the burrowing worms that stubbornly inhabit 90% of the tips of his organic corn crop year after year. Jim believes that the “organic” designation shouldn’t mean that people have to put up with bugs and deformed fruit. Organic farming involves building soil health. Sick plants attract pests. Over-fertilized plants attract pests. Chemical fertilizers that feed the plants do nothing to improve the soil, and successive chemically fed harvests can deplete soil nutrients completely. Organic farming is much more management intensive than conventional farming, which tends to use formula timetables for the application of chemical inputs rather than walking the fields to see what is going on. Another one of Jim’s dictums is, “compost is golden.” Jim and Glen get truckfuls of landscaping yard waste deposited on their farm where it slowly breaks down into nitrogen rich soil food. 
   Now Jim’s organic growing program is approaching its fifth year landmark. According to Jim’s initial plan, his 28 acres should be at their productive peak right about now. So far, he is pretty much on the mark. Production increased dramatically at first as soils were enriched. Crop rotations keep pest cycles down, reducing the need for intensive pest management. Jim is hoping that the flavor and quality of his produce will result in a slight premium in price, just enough to cover increased rent, labor and fuel costs. On a recent market day, Jim came by to visit his workers at the stand, but his main reason was to check on the strawberries.  When the berries are good, they can be the best in the market. Due to the recent cold weather and intermittent sunny days, the berries’ quality was not all Jim wanted. “Good, getting there,” Jim declared after tasting and selling berries for about an hour. Things are good and getting better at Tanaka’s farm stand.