What is Wild Farming?

“…A good farm must be one where the wild fauna and flora has lost acreage without losing existence.” -Aldo Leopold

The Art of Compromise. Thomas Broz, a self-described city boy turned farmer, began growing food with his wife Constance as a way to reconnect with his community and the natural world. Interested in the tension between efforts to grow food, make a living, and strike a proper balance with the environment, his fundamental goal remains “an attempt to bring food production and nature back together.”

Live Earth Farm began in 1995 in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains on two barren, compacted acres formerly occupied by horses. At the time, fifteen local residents pledged their support to a fledgling community supported agriculture (CSA) program. These days, a sizeable crew harvests a diverse mix of organically grown orchard and row crops from more than 80 cultivated acres. The CSA has kept pace with the farm and currently stands at 700 members with more on the waiting list. Over the course of the season, subscribers can expect an assortment of 50 different vegetable crops and a catalog of fruit that includes strawberries, raspberries, apples, Warren pears, Blenheim apricots, plums, and even peaches. Though much has changed in the past 15 years, the original thread of intention with which the farm was founded remains intact.

But as many farmers could attest, achieving harmony is often no easy task. In Tom’s case, expansion of the CSA meant leasing fields scattered around their Corralitos, California home base and he points out that “it is difficult to achieve any kind of balance or harmony when you have to constantly move equipment all over the place.” But difficult is not impossible, and Tom is schooled in the art of compromise. Viewing field edges as opportunities for wild nature to share space with cultivated crops, Tom has worked with Wild Farm Alliance (WFA) and Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) to install native hedgerows on leased fields as well as around their home property. If you ask Tom, he’ll tell you that these natural borders have several functions: they improve water quality, provide pest control and pollination services to nearby fields, and enhance the aesthetics for everyone working on and visiting the farm. And this place gets a lot of visitors. In addition to monthly community farm days and regular celebratory potlucks for CSA subscribers, approximately 700 students from area schools visit the farm each year. One local school has an arrangement through the Live Earth Farm Discovery Program (its nonprofit education organization) in which 6th-8th graders spend one day a week using the farm as a classroom.

Recently, an opportunity came up to acquire 130 acres of land lying adjacent to Live Earth Farm’s original plot and the Broz’s home. The new piece was planted in apples and apricots and managed under conventional methods historically. When the property changed hands, the perennial orchards began the transition to organic certification. This move away from leased land brings the farm back into a contiguous piece and affords new opportunity to address the question often in the back of Tom’s mind: “How can we balance the natural system with our production system?” Through a grant awarded by the Wildlife Conservation Board, WFA and CAFF have teamed up with Tom to plan a network of conservation plantings throughout part of his new property. Efforts are currently underway to restore fertility to the recently purchased land and to increase its value as wildlife habitat. Riparian and upland plantings that promote biodiversity, provide wildlife connections, stabilize soil, and create beneficial insect habitat are beginning to dot the landscape. Native grass filter strips are entering a second season of capturing nutrients and sediment that could otherwise follow gravity to the nearest waterway. Local students have had a hand in several hedgerow plantings to create insect-attracting transition zones between field and forest edge. Volunteers have pulled out invasive species that smother native diversity in natural areas on the farm.

Live Earth Farm’s diverse checkerboard of wild and cultivated along with Tom’s management practices differ from many other farms in the Pajaro and surrounding valleys. Recent food safety concerns have prompted the undoing of years of conservation work on California’s Central Coast as buyers demand near-sterile conditions to lower the perception of contamination risk. Rather than observing the filtration and buffering capacities of native vegetation, habitat is too often viewed solely as a hazard to public health. Since just about all of Live Earth Farm’s produce is sold directly to consumers, Tom does not have food safety auditors advising him to tear out hedgerows that attract pollinators and safeguard topsoil, but he does use common sense practices to ensure the food is safe. In fact, his farm serves as an important model of how natural and semi-natural systems can be managed with both food safety and the wild in mind.

Is it worth it- all this effort to protect biodiversity and educate an upcoming generation while trying to maintain an economically viable enterprise? Ask Tom and he might tell you “cost-efficient is probably not nature-efficient.” There are still things he’s working to change and improve about his operation. And he recognizes that in order to farm at their scale, concessions must be made. Heavy tractors that consume fuel must be used, and soil must be disturbed on a somewhat frequent basis. But then he’ll point out a pair of red-tailed hawks circling a grove of redwood trees on the upper edge of the farm, or tell you something he overheard a visiting student say while they were planting potatoes, and any lingering questions over whether Tom believes it’s well worth the effort are answered.

For information on Live Earth Farm, visit www.liveearthfarm.net/