Swanton Berry Farm

What got Jim interested in farming was working for farmworker- owned cooperatives in central California. With his friend Mark Matze, in 1983, Jim planted four acres of strawberries on rented farmland. They experimented with organic growing methods and were successful enough to pay the bills. Mark got married and ultimately moved to Argentina, leaving the farm in 1985. Jim continued to build the Swanton operation.

“We originally had a really hard time finding land in the area. Prime farmland tends be tied up by established farms. When we came up here, we leased land that had been pasture land. It was good land but it was small and the microclimate was problematic.”

Jim got his first break in 1988 when a chemical farmer sold an established parcel and the new owners wanted an organic farm. Jim leased 25-30 acres from them. Then, another landlord in Watsonville, 25 miles away, also wanted organic, and he leased four acres there.

When the markets for brussels sprouts and artichokes, the predominant local crops, had several bad years, farmers began to let go of more land. Over time, Jim cobbled together leases on five different ranches, 200 acres in all. “The quality varies—some parts really good, other parts sort of bad, most is mediocre. Rent is relatively cheap, so that helps a bit.”

Jim’s first ideas about growing organically came from reading old books about farming, which made passing references to growing mustard as a rotation crop to reduce soil disease. (The mustard breaks down and releases mustard gas, which then eliminates certain soil pathogens.) His neighbor, a University of California Santa Cruz soil disease specialist, gave further suggestions. In 1987, Jim rented land where artichokes and brussels sprouts had been grown. He noticed that where the artichokes were, his strawberries had disease, but where the brussels sprouts had been, there was no disease. The next year he used broccoli and cauliflower instead of methyl bromide and confirmed the beneficial effect of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, mustards, etc.) as a replacement for chemical fertilizer.

University agriculture experts dismissed the concept, but over time, Jim has won them over, along with the many others who have since adopted this technique. Indeed, unbeknownst to Jim, a thousand miles north, Gene Kahn’s Cascadian Farms—another major organic producer—was using broccoli to keep pests away from their strawberries as well. Ultimately, Jim’s efforts to eliminate the use of methyl bromide, which has been linked to depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer, were honored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2002.

Regarding labor standards, it bothered Jim that the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), after some internal debate, would not incorporate into their standards worker rights. If CCOF wasn’t going to do this, he thought, maybe there should be some other set of guidelines or certification that could. And it was about this time that the United Farm Workers was organizing strawberry farms 30 miles away in Watsonville. For Jim, it was “a real opportunity.” He expressed his openness, and the union sent representatives out to talk to his employees.

Unionizing came with “a whole set of guidelines, like a contract, and includes things you wouldn’t have thought of, like a grievance procedure, which turn out to be very helpful. With ten employees, you don’t have much written out.” To Jim, having a formalized structure for labor was like having one for organics—it holds you to a higher standard and gives you the credibility to talk about your standards in your marketing.

Jim’s positive experience here, however, hasn’t caught on. “People think of unions as divisive, combative—they’re thinking of the battles that often precede a contract. Once you have a contract, then you sometimes hear stories of struggles between management and labor, which can result in downward spiral of productivity and profitability. But the way I perceived it was as a partnership instead of as an oppositional relationship. And that’s exactly how it has worked out for me—a mutually beneficial partnership.”