Progress report for WRGR22-007
Project Information
In a response to the regulatory phase-out of methyl bromide, a major soil fumigant used in regional strawberry production, WSARE project GW13-011 investigated the use of compost for suppression of common soilborne diseases. Researchers found that compost amendments were associated with reductions in disease pressure for two common soilborne diseases, both of which affect strawberries as well as many of the other crops grown in our region. Our project couples these important advancements in sustainable agriculture research with an ethical commitment to equity in agriculture, principally by extending compost-induced suppression of soilborne disease to small-scale Latinx farmers in California’s Central Coast.
It is well-known that Latinx farmers in the U.S. face a variety of cultural, financial, and language barriers – as well as explicit instances of discrimination – in their efforts to establish and maintain successful farming operations. Despite these barriers, Latinx farmers have become leaders in the sustainable agriculture movement nationwide. These trends are particularly palpable in California’s Central Coast. Amidst large-scale industrial farming operations and sky-high land prices, Latinx farmers are struggling to establish small-scale, diversified fruit and vegetable farms. One major factor contributing to these farmers’ struggles regionally is the prevalence of soilborne disease, as well as the limited assistance available to help these farmers mitigate the impact of soilborne disease on their crop yield. In addition to utilizing learnings from GW13-011, we draw on pedagogical findings from WSARE projects OW13-062 and ONE20-376 which indicate the importance of one-on-one assistance for small-scale Latinx farmers to help them overcome multiple barriers to implementation. Our project extends compost-induced disease suppression to these farmers via individualized education and implementation assistance, as well as through workshops at regional educational hubs.
- Provide education on compost-induced disease suppressive soils to a total of 60+ small-scale Latinx farmers. We will provide farmers with educational resources on compost-induced disease suppression via workshops designed for broad regional accessibility and via one-on-one consultations, in which we provide resources that are relevant to the farmer’s specific cropping system.
- Provide implementation assistance to a cohort of 15-20 small-scale Latinx farmers annually during the project period. De Corato (2020) notes that is recommended to apply 20-30 tons/hectare (approximately 8-12 tons per acre) to achieve disease suppressive functions without potentially producing an environmental hazard; accordingly, we will support farmers with accessing, applying, and paying for compost at a rate of up to 10 tons/acre.
- Connect small-scale Latinx farmers with resources for accessing compost beyond the project period. Incentives programs like the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Healthy Soils Program offer financial support for farmers implementing sustainable agriculture practices; additionally, grants from non-governmental organization such as the Zero FoodPrint (ZFP) Restore California program offer compost funding for farmers. Given that small-scale Latinx farmers are rarely able to access information about these programs, we will provide participating farmers with information about these and similar opportunities.
- Enhance productivity of soil through application of 300+ tons of compost on a total of 30+ acres of farmland annually. This will involve helping the cohort of 15-20 farmer participants to access and apply compost to their fields at a rate of up to 10 tons/acre for a maximum of 2 acres/farmer.
- Provide additional data on barriers to implementation of compost-induced disease suppression among small-scale Latinx farmers. Through use of surveys throughout educational activities and individual memos of each participating producer’s experience with the practice, we will compile and synthesize information on barriers to implementation.
It is well-known that Latinx farmers in the U.S. face a variety of cultural, financial, and language barriers – as well as explicit instances of discrimination – in their efforts to establish and maintain successful farming operations. Despite these barriers, Latinx farmers have become leaders in the sustainable agriculture movement nationwide (Minkoff Zern, 2019). These trends are particularly palpable in California’s Central Coast. Amidst large-scale industrial farming operations and sky-high land prices, Latinx farmers are struggling to establish small-scale, diversified fruit and vegetable farms. One major factor contributing to these farmers’ struggles regionally is the prevalence of soilborne disease, as well as the limited assistance available to help these farmers mitigate the impact of soilborne disease on their crop yield. Our project extends recent research on management of soilborne disease to small-scale (<20 acres) Spanish-speaking Latinx farmers (those who self-identify as Latino, Latina, or Latinx), ultimately supporting their success as sustainable farmers.
Our project is primarily informed by three WSARE projects: GW13-011, OW13-062, and ONE20-376. For GW13-011, researchers found that compost amendments were associated with reductions in disease pressure for two common soilborne diseases, both of which affect many of the crops grown in our region. Findings from GW13-011 are therefore uniquely relevant to our region and will assist in reducing crop disease pressure faced by small-scale Latinx farmers. Additionally, while OW13-062 and ONE20-376 did not constitute traditional research projects, both projects assisted small-scale Latinx farmers with various aspects of soil management. Reports on each project’s pedagogical approach discuss the effectiveness of one-on-one technical assistance for supporting small-scale Latinx farmers; this finding informs our methodology.
Education & Outreach Initiatives
We aimed to provide implementation assistance to a cohort of 15-20 small-scale Latinx farmers annually during the project period, supporting farmers to access, apply, and pay for compost at a rate of up to 10 tons/acre for a maximum of 2 acres/farmer (Obj. 2). This aim had the added benefit of enhancing soil productivity through application of 300+ tons of compost on a total of 30+ acres of farmland annually (Obj. 4). We additionally sought to connect farmers with resources for accessing compost beyond the project period (Obj. 3).
In summer 2022, we conducted outreach to small-scale (<20 acres) Latinx farmers in our region. To do so, we created a list of farmers in our networks and developed a targeted outreach strategy to prioritize collaboration with farmers based on need and to support those farmers who are not yet utilizing compost as a regular practice. We conducted one-on-one consultations with a cohort of 20 of these farmers to discuss challenges they are experiencing related to soilborne disease and the potential benefits of compost use for disease suppression, as well as for soil health more broadly.
In fall, 2022, based on demonstrated interest from each farmer, we provided implementation assistance so that these 20 farmers could access and apply compost to their fields at a recommended rate of 10 tons/acre for a maximum of 2 acres/farmer. Given that these farmers typically do not have the capacity to spread their own compost, we reached out to compost vendors in our area who also offer spreading services; the only vendor we found was Central Coast Compost (CCC). We communicated with CCC staff to develop a voucher system so that we could provide farmers with compost vouchers pre-approved by the vendor, and the vendor would bill us directly.
In spring 2023, we conducted follow-up one-on-one meetings with farmers during which we addressed their questions and shared literature related to compost-induced disease suppression, asked whether farmers would like to participate in another round of implementation assistance, and discussed opportunities to obtain small grants in order to apply compost to more acreage and/or in future years. Several of the farmers in our cohort were interested in longer-term funding options for compost and other soil health practices, liked cover cropping. Accordingly, we shared information with them about the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) offered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and referred farmers to NRCS staff so that they could apply to that program. However, given that the EQIP application and enrollment process takes many months, we again provided implementation assistance to many of the same farmers in fall, 2023, as well as to some new farmers.
Throughout this work, over 25 farmers have received individualized education about compost benefits and soil disease ecology and have each implemented compost on their farms. Total tons of compost applied and total acreage benefitting will be reported after final invoices have been received.
Through use of surveys throughout educational activities and individual memos of each participating producer’s
experience with the practice, we aimed to compile and synthesize information on barriers to implementation (Obj. 5).
During compost implementation in fall, 2022, we met and communicated regularly with farmers to understand challenges they experienced with regard to compost implementation and to support however possible. In this process, we created memos about each individual farmers’ experiences to track barriers to implementation. We repeated this process in spring, 2023, and again in fall, 2024.
These memos highlight three major themes: (1) the extent to which financial incentives can support compost implementation for small-scale Latinx farmers; (2) the extent to which farmer education can help to overcome structural inequality; (3) the importance of reliable compost production, delivery, and spreading services for small-scale Latinx farmers. First, we find that funds provided by WSARE meaningfully offset the cost of compost for many of these farmers, as they often indicate that they would not be able to apply compost without this support. That said, some farmers find it difficult to make time for this practice even with the financial incentive, as many are juggling multiple jobs and various ongoing crises associated with being a low-income and non-English speaking farmer (e.g., unreliable labor and equipment, inability to market produce, insecure land tenure). Second, farmers have expressed a lot of interest in the disease suppressive capacities of compost and the principles of microbiology that we discuss with them. Although most of these farmers lack the time needed to attend further agricultural education and most relevant educational materials are only available in English, the one-on-one technical assistance that we provide is well-received and, it appears, much needed. We will continue this work to support farmer education on compost uses and soil disease suppression. Still, these farmers often lack the secure land tenure required to build up soil organic matter and receive associated benefits – in fact, multiple of the farmers we are supporting with compost implementation have indicated that they may need to leave their parcels within the next 12 months. Unfortunately, the issue of land tenure is largely outside of the focus of our organization’s work. Further collaboration with other governmental and non-governmental organizations will be required to address the broader issue of land tenure that limits the ability of regional small-scale Latinx farmers to achieve soil health goals. Third, during fall, 2023, farmers began to experience major problems with the compost vendor. The compost vendor - Central Coast Compost - changed ownership and became Central Coast Worm Farm, with several impacts for farmers. Most importantly, this change has resulted in a disorganized billing process, creating additional confusion for farmers who are often not very financially literate. This compost provider is the only known provider in our area that offers delivery and spreading of compost, both of which are essential services for small-scale farmers who do not have their own delivery and spreading equipment. Accordingly, farmers have no other options for compost providers and must be patient while the new billing procedures are established. This phenomenon points to opportunities for a possible "agricultural equipment library" to benefit small-scale farmers in our region such that farmers would be able to borrow delivery and spreading equipment and work with a wider variety of compost providers. We are in the process of developing this idea in collaboration with local partner organizations, such as the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology.
During one-on-one follow-up meetings with farmers conducted in spring, 2024, we will develop another round of memos. Following that process, we will create a comprehensive memo to summarize farmers' experiences and barriers to implementation and will share this information with our interlocutors.
Information collected through our memos are meant to offer qualitative insight into the potential barriers to implementation of compost-induced disease suppression among small-scale Latinx farmers in our region. Insights will support learning among regional farmer technical assistance providers.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
We conducted an estimated 2 consultations per farmer for a total of 20 farmers in the first year of compost implementation, and an estimated 2 consultations per farmer for a total of 20 farmers in the second year of compost implementation, with approximately 5 new farmers in the second year. Future work for this project will include more consultations with farmers and 2 workshops conducted at regional agricultural education hubs.
Project Outcomes
So far, we have supported 25 farmers through one-on-one consultations to learn about the multiple uses of compost and, in particular, its ability to suppress soilborne disease. We anticipate reaching a broader audience as we develop 2 educational workshops in the coming months.
As mentioned in our discussion of Education and Outreach Initiatives, the farmers we work with often lack the secure land tenure required to build up soil organic matter and receive the associated benefits found by project GW13-011. Multiple of the farmers we are supporting with compost implementation have indicated that they may need to leave their parcels within the next 12 months. The issue of land tenure is largely outside of the focus of our organization’s work, yet it remains fundamentally important for the regional small-scale Latinx farmers to achieve soil health goals. We recommend that future SARE grant recipients focus on the intersection of soil health and land tenure issues through a combination of advocacy and social science research.