Resilience

A View From the Air: Carbon Sequestration, Midwestern Farms and Biodiversity.

Adrian Ayres Fisher, orig. pub by Ecological Gardening   May 2, 2018

One afternoon in early March I flew from Boston to Chicago, returning home from an Ecological Landscape Alliance conference. Cloud cover, white and lumpy as a rumpled hotel duvet, obscured the view, until over western Pennsylvania the plane crossed the edge of the weather system. Our country’s heartland unfurled below. The gently rolling terrain flattened as the plane headed west, divided by roads delineating a grid, with fields, towns, and even woodlots squared into the design.

This tidy, Grant Woods-esque arrangement is the relic of late 18th century surveying expeditions sent out to divide the Northwest Territory into 6-mile square townships, the better to sell off, settle and tame the nearly, at the time, unfathomable expanse. As they worked, the surveyors made detailed maps, including of vegetation; they used boulders, piles of rock or even notable trees as corner markers and confirmed corner placement with nearby “witness trees.” Today, restorationists use these maps to help figure out what kinds of ecosystems they should be restoring to, when embarking on conservation or rewilding projects.

We flew on. Farm building roofs shone in the sun among the fields; only the occasional meandering river gave a hint of how the land had looked in the early 19th century. Though there’d been snow out east, here everything was shades of brown: leafless woodlot trees and tens of millions of acres of empty fields, a mid to dark brown sea of bare earth.

Bare fields full of potential 
For me that landscape was a palimpsest of loss, prosperity and the potential to help mitigate climate change. The ghosts of past cultures—the Adena, the Hopewell, more recently displaced nations such as the Potawatomi and Miami, and a later thriving network of small American family farms—lay below. These successive groups inhabited a now phantom post-glacial landscape comprised of Eastern deciduous forest punctuated by areas of savanna, prairie and wetland that, as a traveler journeyed west, expanded until the prairie dominated.

Today this landscape, tended by a very few farmers utilizing all that technology has on offer, signify an evanescent prosperity precariously balanced on an extremely limited number of commodity crops. This flourishing economy could be upended tomorrow not only by ill-conceived trade wars, or weather catastrophes such as drought, but also by the mounting environmental problems, including but not exclusive to climate change, that are nearly all of our culture’s own devising.

Years ago I might have seen those fields as completely normal, even desirable. But no longer. Because I’m a regenerative gardener and natural landscape manager, when I see a piece of land, no matter the size, I see an opportunity to nurture what biodiversity is there. To me, improving a parcel of land means working with it in such a way as to increase its ecosystem functionality. I highly respect the work conventional farmers do to wrest a living from the soil; I believe that industrial farming methods are not only outmoded, but also actively dangerous.

Those Midwestern fields are losing their fertility along with their world-class topsoil; many now lack the organic matter and important microbial life that not only maintain good soil structure and health but also allow water to percolate properly. Conventional farming practices, such as leaving the earth bare from harvest until planting season, can actively harm the living soil. Fertilizer run-off pollutes waterways and overuse of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides inflict far-reaching collateral damage on living organisms from bumblebees and monarch butterflies to birds to humans, while habitat destruction imperils them further.

But what could that landscape teach about climate change mitigation and environmental renewal? It’s become evident that to hold average planetary temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), global emissions should peak by 2020, and then decline by 10% or greater each year in order to reach zero emissions by 2050. Thereafter, the downward trend then must continue into negative emissions territory. Clearly, technology-based solutions such as ramping up renewable energy while leaving fossil fuels in the ground are fundamental to mitigation. Emissions reductions and increased energy efficiency are essential in every arena, from the global to the personal. For example, if the global top 10% of individual carbon emitters reduced their carbon footprints to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would decline 30%. (This, of course, includes nearly all US residents.)

However, going further means figuring out how to actively remove carbon from the air. Most schemes are in the research stage; existing mechanical carbon capture and sequestration (CSS) is expensive and difficult and only halts emissions at industrial sites. So far, only seventeen facilities, including an ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois, use the technology to achieve neutral production emissions. Proposed biomass-based CSS systems such as BECCS (Bio-mass carbon capture and storage), with their emphasis on monocultures, have the potential to further damage ecosystems.

Solving global warming requires increasing biodiversity 
Global warming, with its effects of climate weirding, is just one element—a deadly symptom, if you will—of the ongoing, global crisis of ecological destruction that also includes extinction, water scarcity, pollution and desertification. Averting this human-inflicted catastrophe will require multiple, diverse strategies and it has become increasingly clear we cannot accomplish anything without the aid of our planet’s complex natural systems. Solving the greenhouse gas puzzle requires working to help biodiversity increase worldwide and helping the currently disrupted biogeochemical cycles stabilize and recover so that all life might thrive on our beautiful blue and green planet.

This is where large-scale regenerative land management comes into play: it is the most effective tool for carbon sequestration that presently exists. Carbon sequestration through natural means includes not only vitally important conservation and restoration, but necessitates incorporation into all landscape management, from regenerative organic farming and intensively managed holistic grazing to, on the one hand, backyard landscaping with native plants and on the other, toxic chemical cleanup. Managing land along principles that foster soil health and biodiversity not only can sequester carbon on a potentially massive scale (4-12 GtCO2e or even more), but can also help regulate local water cycles, thereby helping avoid both desertification and excessive flooding. It also reduces toxic chemical use and nutrient run-off, all the while promoting biodiversity in plant and animal life, from the microbes in the soil, to pollinators, birds and other animals, to charismatic megafauna and apex predators such as ourselves.

Agriculturalists and other land managers throughout the world are already changing their practices, though it’s been slow to take hold in the Midwest. Regenerative agriculture networks such as ReGenerate IL have sprung up; farmers and scientists have formed partnerships to explore and measure the soil health and carbon sequestration potential of agricultural practices both ancient and cutting edge; farmers are beginning to try methods such as cover crops and waterway buffer zones planted with native plants. In all this, the most innovative practices combine agriculture with landscape management for biodiversity. There’s even an economic case to be made. In this era of falling commodity prices, rising costs of materials and supplies, and potential economic woes, many conventional farmers are already struggling to make ends meet. Farmers are discovering that, while it requires more, different kinds of knowledge and work, regenerative farming can actually be more profitable owing to reduced production costs and higher selling prices. More might go the way of the Nebraska farmer I heard interviewed on the radio recently, who said he is considering moving at least part of his farm out of soy, corn and hogs, and into diversified organics.

A possible future landscape 
What might air travelers traversing the Midwest see ten years in the future? Farms, of course. We can’t return the Midwest to the matrix of woods, prairie and savanna it was 150 years ago. But what if all that land was managed not only for food production but also for soil health, water management, biodiversity and carbon sequestration? There’d be very little bare soil. Instead, there’d be extensive cover crops blanketing fields whose crop production included diverse, multi-year rotations; wide bands of prairie and woods featuring native grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees bordering fields, waterways and roads; areas of intensively managed grazing; alley cropping, silvopasturing and other forms of agroecology; and even expanded natural areas: in short, carbon sequestering, diversified, fertile farmland that would be healthier for farmers as well as the planet.

On the western edge of Indiana, the land changed again. As we descended towards Midway airport, subdivisions, logistics terminals, golf courses and parks replaced fields. Remarkably, amidst the development reposed large, wild areas featuring irregular woods along creeks and streams and the shaggy tan carpet of dormant prairie grasses. We’d entered Cook County: home to the 5.25 million people of the Chicago metro area and the most biodiverse county in Illinois, thanks in part to the nearly seventy thousand acres of carbon-sequestering forest preserve land managed through a unique partnership of professionals and volunteers.

I fastened my seatbelt. I thought about Aldo Leopold, the Midwesterner who both worked with farmers to save and restore their land during the Great Depression and helped invent the art and science of ecological restoration. Leopold might not have known about global warming—very few at the time did—but he had a thorough understanding of the harm unthinking human activities can wreak. He wrote that most modern technologies and practices, “do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” That has become our greatest, most significant challenge in the Midwest and worldwide. Are we up for it? Can we solve the puzzle?

References:

Ecological Landscape Alliance: https://www.ecolandscaping.org/

(4-12 GtCO2e or even more):  “There’s a huge gap between the Paris climate change goals and reality Current pledges are about a third of what’s needed.”
By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com Updated Nov 6, 2017, 10:56am EST https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/31/16579844/climate-gap-unep-2017

“Decatur plant at forefront of push to pipe carbon emissions underground, but costs raise questions.”
By Tony Briscoe/ Chicago Tribune /November 23,

Miami Herald

Solar panels on farmland stir debate in central Washington

By Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times      May 5, 2018

In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmer Jackie Brunson, right, walks with Tuusso Energy co-founder Jason Evans, whose project would place photovoltaic panels on some of the Brunson land and property belonging to three other Kittitas County landowners, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

Seattle: After decades of growing alfalfa, Timothy hay and other crops, Jeff and Jackie Brunson want to lease part of their farm to a Seattle-based solar-power developer.

Not a popular move. Neighbors and other county residents don’t want the green of summer fields transformed into a black expanse of photovoltaic panels.

“They aren’t happy. But it is a business decision we have made, and we don’t regret it one iota,” said Jackie Brunson. “We owe nobody a view. It’s our farm, and it’s a great way to diversify.”

As proposed by Seattle-based Tuusso Energy, the photovoltaic panels would spread across more than 80 of the Brunsons’ 1,000 acres, and another 120 acres owned by three other Ellensburg-area landowners. If approved, this would be one of the first solar farms to come on line in Washington — and for some, an unwelcome precedent for turning crop land over to solar-energy production.

In this case, the solar panels would sit on less than a half percent of Kittitas County’s 180,000 farm acres. Still, opponents worry that a project here, combined with a rising demand for clean energy such as solar, will swallow up whole swaths of agricultural land that produce the crops and livestock that underpin the county economy.

“These projects should not be on ag land. There are plenty of other places in the county where they can go,” said Richard Carkner, Brunson’s neighbor and a founder of Save Our Farms, a nonprofit formed to oppose the development.

Such concerns prompted county commissioners to reject an earlier solar project proposed for farmland and approve a moratorium for permits for all new ones.

Developers say predictions of solar sprawl are overblown, and that county delays put the project at risk.

They have asked the state to override the county moratorium, and on April 17 they achieved initial success when the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved an expedited review of the Tuusso project. Council members now have two months to make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.

“We are excited about the decision,” said Jason Evans, co-founder of Tuusso Energy. “If everything goes well, we could be breaking ground by the end of the year.”

County commissioners had hoped the state council would stay out of the permitting.

“The process really takes away the voice of the local government and the local citizens and local control of what the land is going to look like,” said Laura Osiadacz, a county commissioner. “It is a very disappointing decision for the residents of Kittitas County.”

The Kittitas County clash is part of a broader battle over solar siting, one that has escalated in recent years as developers fan out across the country in search of prime locations. Their projects range from a few dozen acres to mega-solar farms like Topaz, which spreads over 6,400 acres in San Luis Obispo County in California.

The industry’s dramatic expansion has been buoyed by favorable government policies and incentives and growing consumer demand for cleaner sources of electricity.

Developers also have benefited from huge declines in the prices of photovoltaic panels, which use silicon, an element found in sand, to convert sunlight into electricity. From 2010 through 2017, the average project costs plummeted by about 80 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In 2017, these solar projects generated about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Solar’s share of the power market is expected to grow.

Even with the 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels announced this year by President Donald Trump, solar projects can be built for far less money than in years past.

“We have seen panels get more efficient, and a lot more inexpensive,” said Evans, who co-founded Tuusso Energy back in 2008, and through the past decade has helped to bring on five solar projects in four states.

But some developers have faced resistance for projects that typically involve tens or hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic panels.

In Oregon, for example, the state land-use board last year overturned Jackson County’s approval of an 80-acre project on farmland.

In North Carolina’s Currituck County, where two projects have been placed on 2,260 acres of farm land, neighbors complained about noise and dust during construction and poor maintenance that allowed weeds to sprout among the solar panels. These issues, along with concerns about farmland loss, helped persuade county commissioners in February 2017 to ban new solar developments, according to Laurie LoCicero, the county planning director.

In Washington, solar has largely been confined to rooftop installations on homes and businesses, and a small demonstration project at a Puget Sound Energy (PSE) site in Kittitas County.

Most renewable-energy development during the past two decades has focused on wind power. These projects, at times, also have faced pushback in Kittitas County, which is just over the Cascade divide from the Puget Sound region.

Then-Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2007 approved the Horizon Wind project that had been turned down by county commissioners. In a legal challenges, plaintiffs argued that the turbines, visible for miles, would spoil a scenic view shed and violate local ordinances, but the state Supreme Court allowed the project to go forward.

In Washington, wind power development has slowed, with many of the prime ridge-top and other sites already claimed.

Unless PSE and other utilities venture farther afield to prime wind states like Montana, the future here is likely to include a lot more solar power. In a recent planning document, PSE tagged Eastern Washington solar as the cheapest renewable option, and forecast buying up to 266 megawatts of power from solar producers by 2023.

Tuusso’s project — known as Columbia Solar — would meet only a small part of that demand. The sites selected — and leased for 30 years — would collectively produce 25 megawatts of power.

The project would provide enough electricity for about 1,000 homes, according to Evans. The panels would sit about 8 feet high, and trees and shrubs would be planted to help screen them from view.

The project is estimated to cost $40 million to $50 million, and is made possible by a 1978 federal law — the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act — that requires PSE to buy the electricity at a price equal to or less than the cost from a traditional power plant.

In Kittitas County, Tuusso Energy has found some support, including from the Chamber of Commerce board, which voted unanimously to endorse the project.

“The feeling was that we do have to transition away from carbon fuels at some point, and solar is a good way to do it,” said Jim Armstrong, the chamber’s executive director.

County critics say they are not against solar energy, but that farmland — under the state’s Growth Management Act — is supposed to be protected.

Carkner, a retired agricultural economist, says each planted acre helps support the broader community as farmers purchase seed, fertilizer, tractors and other merchandise from local merchants, and spend their earnings in town.

So Carkner wants projects placed in more remote, undeveloped parts of the county, some of which, he said, have the three-phase electrical lines needed to handle the power produced by photovoltaic panels.

Tuusso did initially look at such land but could find no suitable sites with the three-phase transmission network in place, according to Evans. It would be possible for a large solar project to build a three-transmission network in these out-of-the-way locations. But for a smaller project, such as Columbia Solar, Evans says such development would add millions of dollars in costs and scuttle profitability.

The economics look a lot better in the irrigated agricultural zone, where an extensive three-phase transmission system already is in place, according to Evans.

But even in this farm belt, the transmission system is limited, and would largely be tapped out once photovoltaic panels were placed on some 400 acres of farmland, according to Evans. Thus, he said concerns that county farmland would be overrun by solar photovoltaic panels are unjustified.

If Columbia Solar gets a green light from Inslee, opponents still may opt to pursue a legal challenge.

But if all goes according to plan, the alfalfa and seed oats now growing in two of the Brunsons’ fields be replaced next year by some 35,000 photovoltaic panels.

Jeff Brunson figures that, even on these lands, he still will be farming.

“The sun raises my crops right now, and the sun is going to raise them in the future,” Brunson said.

In this March 20, 2018 photo, Ellensburg landowner and Microsoft employee Jay Pittenger stands on his land that Tuusso Energy wants to lease for a solar farm, in Ellensburg, Wash. The tract has not been used to grow crops. It is one of five sites, belonging to four different landowners, where Tuusso Energy wants to put solar panels. The proposed solar farm has stirred controversy in the county, as did a ridge-top wind farm shown in the distance. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

This March 20, 2018 photo shows Jeff and Jackie Brunson’s land near Ellensburg, Wash. The couple, who farm about 1,000 acres plan to lease out more than 80 acres of their land for a solar farm. If the plan is approved, solar panels would cover that property, including the parcel shown here, which is bordered by trees at left, Highway 97 in the distance and Tjossem Road at right. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

In this March 20, 2018 photo, Jeff Brunson jumps a ditch by a 100-acre field he is seeding with Timothy hay, in Ellensburg, Wash. He and his wife want to diversify by leasing some of their Kittitas County land to a solar-energy developer while continuing to farm most of their 1,000 acres. The state is considering whether to allow the project. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmers Jackie and Jeff Brunson speak about hearing complaints from neighbors and others who don’t want farmland used for energy development, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

Civil Eats

In the California Desert, the Bautista Family Grows Hot Dates

By Annelise Jolley – Farmer Profiles, Local Eats     April 30 2018

The organic, family-run operation relies on numerous by-hand processes and 100+ free-ranging animals to produce seven varieties of the sweet fruit. Since 2011, their mail-order operation has developed a fanatical following of date-lovers from around the country.

If you want to have the best date of your life, you’ll need to visit 7HotDates.com. Before you balk, you should know the Bautista family—owner of the Bautista Family Date Ranch and the aforementioned website—was a little unsure about the name at first.

“A customer thought of it,” explains Alvaro Bautista, one of five Bautista siblings. “We discussed the name because it seems like a double-entendre, but she convinced us that it was going to work. She said, ‘When they see it, they’re going to remember [you].’”

The name, along with a logo of puckered lips, has done its job. Today the family of date farmers lives and works on a 14-acre property of 1,000 date palms, each of which produce 200 pounds of fruit every year. Their dates are a staple at farmers’ markets from Santa Monica to Palm Springs, and their online store regularly sells out for four months out of the year.

The Bautistas farm dates in the Coachella Valley of California, where more than 90 percent of America’s dates are grown. In contrast to many commercial growers, they practice a more labor-intensive style of cultivation, hand-pollinating their trees instead of relying on mechanized pollination, and harvesting multiple times a year.

While most growers allow their dates to ripen to a drier texture on the tree before harvesting once in early fall, the Bautistas begin climbing their trees in August to hand-pick individual fruits at peak ripeness. This attention to variance in flavor and texture has earned them a cult following at farmers’ markets and, with the launch of their online store, around the country.

Different varieties of dates await packaging in the Bautista’s processing house.

The Bautista Family Date Ranch sits in a desert town called Mecca at the edge of the Salton Sea, an unlikely landmark in the middle of Southern California’s desert. Driving east from San Diego, the 15- by 35-mile Salton Sea appears as a wash of blue against the beige expanse. The sea was formed when the Colorado River flooded its banks in 1905. Cities on its banks enjoyed a short heyday as resort towns, but when the sea’s salinity became inhospitable, and fish started rotting on its shores, vacation destinations transformed into polluted ghost towns. But date palms thrive in this desolate, sandy landscape, with the scorching, 110-plus-degree temperatures, extreme sunlight, and deep underground aquifers producing tender, syrupy dates.

Dates were first introduced to America in the early 1900s, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsored global excursions to bring back exotic foods; explorers traveled to the Middle East and returned with offshoots of date palms which they introduced to the Saharan-like valley.

Most commercial growers in the region focus on two popular date varieties: deglet noor and medjool. But the Bautistas’ relatively small-scale operation produces seven varieties: medjool, khadrawy, halawy, honey, deglet noor, zahidi, and barhi, each with its own characteristics and flavors.

The ranch, which has been farmed organically for more than 50 years, feels like an oasis. Thickly growing palms shade the property. Roosters crow, and a warm breeze rustles the fronds. Pecan, guava, and mango trees supplement the family’s date intake—up to a pound a day during harvest—and a herd of animals roam the ranch freely.

“That’s the best part of my job,” says Alvaro. “I go to Los Angeles [for markets], and then I get to come back here.”

All in the Family

The Bautista family’s success has been decades in the making and has not come without its share of suffering. The five siblings’ father, Enrique Bautista, and his wife, Graciela, immigrated to the Coachella Valley from Michoacán, Mexico in the early 1970s. Enrique got his start in agriculture working with grapes and citrus plants and eventually began farming dates.

By the late 1990s, Enrique was working as foreman on a date ranch and living across the street with Graciela and their five kids: Alvaro, Maricela, Alicia, Jaime, and Enrique, Jr. When the owners of the ranch retired, they offered the business to him, extending a private loan that made the purchase possible.

Agriculture was in the Bautistas’ DNA—the family had spent seasons processing grapes and harvesting apples side by side—so it was only natural that Enrique’s wife and children would join him on the date ranch. His wife and daughters managed the packing house and administration, while his sons oversaw the growing and farmers’ market sales. During harvest season, everyone went up into the trees.

Enrique and Alvaro check up on trees at the edge of the ranch.

Then in 2004, a car wreck on the way home from a market left Enrique paralyzed. After the accident, the family hunkered down on the ranch. They cut back on markets and sold palm trees, hiring more people to take over Enrique’s work. They created paths between the rows of trees so he could still manage his property from an electric wheelchair. Alvaro took over sales, driving hours every day to farmers’ markets across Southern California. Even though the Bautistas banded together, they still struggled to keep the family business afloat.

It was a customer’s belief in the value of their fruit that saved the ranch. Pro bono, she designed the website 7HotDates.com, a play on the high temperatures that coax the palms into producing. The new name and website, launched in 2011, created a buzz at farmers’ markets and directed a surge of customers to the online store.

Once the Bautistas could field orders online, they discovered a community of date aficionados around the country who were eager for fresh dates of all varieties. Their five to six mail orders per week shot up to dozens per day—and now they sell up to 90 orders a day during harvest season to customers as far away as Canada.

While most customers pay online with credit cards, the Bautistas still offer to take payments by an honor system, a return envelope tucked in each box of dates. And they still work together. Alicia is the office manager; Alvaro is a farmer and farmers’-market salesman; and Maricela runs the packing house. Enrique’s other two sons live and work nearby, and Enrique continues to oversee the ranch from his scooter-friendly pathways.

Reflecting on how his family weathered the aftermath of his accident, Enrique says, “You have to work hard. That is the best recommendation.”

“And enjoy,” adds Alvaro. “It’s a lot of work, but if you enjoy it and know that you are doing it for the best of your family, it’s a lot easier.”

Farming Organically and By Hand

Although many things have changed since the Ranch’s early days, the Bautistas have remained committed to certain practices, like minimal processing. While many commercial date growers subject their fruit to hydrating, dehydrating, steaming, and glazing to maintain the fruit’s appearance and shelf life, the Bautista’s dates are never steamed, frozen, or heated and are packaged in their natural, pit-in state.

Additionally, one of Enrique’s first decisions as owner was to pursue organic certification. The ranch’s first farmers registered the property as organic, and having worked on conventional orchards around chemicals and pesticides, Enrique wanted his own ranch to be free of toxins. The Bautistas began the organic certification process in 1999 and received their official certification in 2002.

Alvaro demonstrates the by-hand thinning technique for young medjool buds.

As a certified organic operation, the Bautistas use free-ranging goats, cows, sheep, chickens, and even peacocks—known for killing snakes—to manage the property. Rather than relying on the pesticides used by conventional date farms, the ranch relies on animals to keep pests and date predators at bay. “We have a zoo,” says Enrique of the more than 100 animals that do their part to eat pests, trim weeds, graze on the cowpeas cover crop, and fertilize the soil with organic matter. The animals’ manure alone accomplishes 80 percent of the soil building.

On the ranch—which functions as an interconnected system whose distinct parts serve a whole—the work rarely abates. “With date palm trees, there’s always something to do,” says Alvaro. “It takes about seven months from blossom to harvest, so it’s almost like a baby.”

Not only is the work demanding because of the dates’ long growing cycle, but the Bautistas also inject specialized care into every farm task. “[When] everything you do is for the trees, they’ll produce more,” says Enrique. “The more you invest, the more they give.”

Whereas since the 1970s, many commercial growers—certified organic as well as conventional—have turned to mechanized pollination methods to save time and labor, the Bautistas hand pollinate every tree on the property each spring. When the male palms that ring the ranch begin to blossom, Alvaro and other employees harvest their pollen and dust it on the stalks of the female trees individually —a more labor-intensive method, but one that ensures thorough pollination of every palm. Once pollinated, in lieu of using pesticides, they hand-tie cloth bags around their dates to protect them from birds and bugs.

Pollinated date bunches are covered in paper to contain the pollen.

Other days, they walk through the palms and hand-thin every medjool tree. Because the medjool date is larger, the fruits easily grow too tight, causing fermentation. Picking three date buds off the stem for every bud they leave on prevents insects or infection from multiplying inside the dense bunch. “[Medjools are] a little more labor,” Alvaro admits, “but everyone loves them because of their size.”

This attention to their customers’ preferences is what sets the Bautista’s dates apart. While most date producers harvest only once in October, the Bautistas are up in their trees by August, as soon as the dates are ripe.

This makes for trickier packing—younger fruit is sticky and retains moisture—but it also means they capture a flavor and texture rarely found elsewhere. After August, they harvest once or twice more, allowing them to monitor the fruit and pick every date at peak ripeness.

This isn’t the most efficient way to harvest, but the Bautistas aren’t after efficiency. They’ve built a successful ranch and a loyal fan base out of two things: hard work and care—for both their customers and their trees.

Top photo: Enrique Bautista, owner of the Bautista Family Date Ranch, sits in front of his children Alicia (L), Alvaro (middle), and Maricela (R).

All photos © Annelise Jolley.