102 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM It’s also hard work. When Ryan started leasing the former San Gregorio Farm on Highway 84, the rambling property was in a serious state of disrepair. He inherited a tumbled-down barn and an old farmworker house that had fully collapsed. “The reality of a lot of the farms out here is that, as farmers are retiring, they’re not investing in the infrastructure,” he shares. And farms need more than fertile soil to survive. They need functional irrigation systems, reliable electricity and sheds for washing and packing produce. Daniel Olstein, the director of land stewardship at Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), refers to “less sexy” systems like wells, septic and storage as essential for keeping San Mateo County’s PHOTOGRAPHY: PAULETTE PHLIPOT beans, freshly picked organic fruits and vegetables, local breads and pastries. Past a tidy row of four farmworker houses are tidy fields of flourishing vegetables and the popular U-pick berry patch. The work to revitalize the 74acre organic farm has taken eight years. “We’ve been doing it little by little, and just made do with what we had until it was all built,” Ryan shares. “Now, I’m just trying to do some farming without any ambitious projects.” This spring, Ryan reached another milestone: he purchased Blue House Farm from POST, graduating from renter to owner. There’s plenty of community interest in supporting local agriculture, but he still feels a need to spread the word about its benefits, for both the farmer and the food buyer. “I encourage people to visit a farmers market or take a drive out to a farm that’s open to the public like mine, with a U-pick or a farmstand, and try some different things,” he says. agriculture heritage alive. The crumbling infrastructure is often a byproduct of owners who didn’t invest in upkeep because they just couldn’t see much of a future for farming on the coast. And it’s easy to see why. The county has lost 46% percent of its agricultural land since 1990. That grim statistic spurred POST to launch its Farmland Futures Initiative and prevent redevelopment by purchasing farms or securing easement agreements. But that wasn’t enough. “We came to an understanding that, even with our efforts, the land may be protected from development, but farming wasn’t necessarily being sustained,” Daniel says. Now POST pairs with other local agencies to support projects ranging from farmworker housing to irrigation ponds. On a recent sunny Saturday at picture-perfect Blue House Farm, there’s no trace of its ramshackle past. A stately new barn houses the produce stand, where you can find an array of heirloom dried Out in the Fields
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