Newsletter
Fall 2002 Newsletter
Back in the Family &
Back in Production: The Barboni Ranch Easement
The Meaning of Landscape
A Conservation Easement Primer: How does MALT Get the Money to Buy Easement
Coming Home To Eat
From Field to Table: Marin's Annual Crop Report
Personal: Land Trust Seeks Relationship with
Corporate Partner
Fall Hikes & Tours
Back in the Family & Back in Production:
The Barboni Ranch Easement
The house where Bill Barboni grew up in sits in the middle of pastureland and hay fields in Hick's Valley. The fields look very much the way they did when his Uncle Joe bought the property in 1916. Joe and his wife both died young, leaving nine children between the ages of four and fourteen. The ranch they'd owned was left in trust for their children, but when it looked as though the youngsters would end up in orphanages, Bill's parents Charles and Effie Barboni stepped in and offered to raise them along with their own son and daughter. Charles sold his Two Rock ranch and moved into a home built on the Hick's Valley property in 1928 to house the brood. Family members ranched there until 1999 when the land and homesite were sold to settle the cousins' estate. The new owner took the acreage out of production.
Now 81 years old, Bill is today the patriarch of a family that includes San Francisco-born Rosemarie, his wife of 56 years, and their five grown children, Charlie, Stephanie, Bonnie, Bill II, and Julie. Like Bill, all of them are bound to the land by history, memory, or profession. And so in June, the family sold MALT an easement which enabled them to purchase the 448-acre portion of the ranch where Bill's childhood home is located. The easement covers that acreage and an adjacent 862 acres already owned by the Barbonis, permanently protecting a total of 1,310 acres from non-agricultural development. "I'm so happy to get the house back that I moved into when I was seven years old," Bill said recently. "It made my life." Daughter Bonnie and her husband are planning to live in the home when repairs are completed, and the land will once again be farmed.
The Barboni project covers more land than any single easement ever purchased by MALT. Besides agreeing never to subdivide the property, the family also elected to add two new provisions to their easement. The first includes special protections for designated creeks and tributaries that ensure the safekeeping of important water resources in a working landscape.
The second restricts the size of future residences to 3,000 square feet. This was the first time these protections have been included in a MALT agreement, and they added value to the price paid for the easement. A $905,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy was combined with $1,425,000 in funds raised in MALT's capital campaign to purchase the easement for the appraised amount of $2,330,000.
The history of the Barboni family on the north coast is a long one, beginning around 1886 with the arrival of Bill's grandfather, Constantino Barboni, from Switzerland. Like other poor immigrants, he took up the kind of labor he knew best, working on a Point Arena dairy. He returned to Switzerland for a few years, then finally settled on a rented ranch near Petaluma with his wife Josephine. Though Constantino never owned property himself, his descendents inherited his work ethic and determination. Over the years, they hauled dairy products to Petaluma by horse and buggy, or shipped them to San Francisco by ferryboat. As demand for farm-fresh dairy products increased, their businesses grew. Constantino's son Charles bought ranchland in the surrounding countryside and was a founder of the successful Marin Dell Milk Company in 1932. Bill followed in his father's footsteps, eventually buying out his dad's dairy business in 1960.
But times have changed. Where once there were 150 dairies in Marin County, only the 27 largest operations continue today. The Barbonis closed their dairy in 1995, but now Bill II, a veterinarian, raises replacement heifers, sheep, and purebred Angus beef calves on the land. "If you keep up with a local homegrown product, there's a future," the younger rancher says. And so a tradition continues
"It's something that started with nothing," his father adds. "But we've kept [the land] for 75 years. I hope the kids can have another 75 like we have." Bill himself is in it for the long haul. "I'm the last old-timer left in the valley," he says. "I'll never leave this ranch." -Elisabeth Ptak
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The Meaning of Landscape
Sales at the 5th Annual Ranches & Rolling Hills landscape art show held in May 2002, broke all previous records, totaling more then $165,000, with artists designating 50% of that amount to MALT's farmland preservation program. But besides the financial contribution, the ongoing success of the art show strengthens our belief that the connection between the landscape and the landscape painter is an inestimable one. They show us what we have before it is gone forever.
And if it's true, as a New York Times writer put it recently, that "the land tells us who the people are," we also can take stock of ourselves in the forests and farmlands the artists capture on canvas and that are the territory of daily life in West Marin.
From the tip of the Point Reyes peninsula to the northernmost point of Marin County, from the wilderness to the working landscape, this is a place where deer, wild turkeys, and Holstein cows graze in the same pastures; where, if the lion and the lamb don't exactly lie down together, they at least each have their own advocates; and where, eventually, environmentalists and ranchers try to work together on vexing issues because, after all, the arm bone's connected to the shoulder bone.
Geology and climate have played the biggest role in the evolution of the wilderness and rangelands that define West Marin. But it's also human perseverance that has preserved these landscapes. The word itself comes from the Dutch "landschap." And in Landscape and Memory Simon Schama writes that landscape "… signified a unit of human occupation, indeed a jurisdiction, as much as anything that might be a pleasing object of depiction."
Since its creation as a national park in 1962, the seashore and its protection have been overseen by the National Park Service. Their stewardship allows the peace that comes from a meditative walk through the woods, the pleasant surprise that accompanies an unexpected encounter with a fox on a trail, and the breathtaking sight of a gathering of pelicans on Tomales Bay.
Fitted like puzzle pieces into this natural world is a hive of dairy and beef ranches, worked by descendants of people who have been producing food and forage from this land for a century and a half. It's a harvest of some of that forage that brought a group of us to the Ielmorini-Moody Dairy in late May.
The choreography of the harvest involved men, mowers, and on this day, an audience. Leo Ielmorini hitched his tractor up to a long wagon fitted with hay bales for us to sit on as he pulled the rig across a hundred acres of silage fields so we could watch the harvesters at work.
A man in a massive mower swathed the fields, sculpting bright green windrows from the oats, rye, wheat, and barley, a mix planted for its nutritional value as livestock feed as well as for a kind of insurance. "That way," explained Leo, "if one grain doesn't do well, we never get skunked."
It's a little late for the harvest, but a chance storm that dumped an inch or so of rain on the crop meant he and his nephew Steve Moody, co-owner of the ranch, had to wait an extra week for the ground to dry out. There's no rain today, and just enough sun to make the crop glisten and enough of a breeze to make it look as if it's taking a little bow before the final curtain goes down. A chopper follows the mowing machine, collecting and mincing the green hay. It funnels the cuttings into a truck keeping pace alongside until, at a two-toot signal from the man in the chopper, the truck driver moves the full vehicle away across the now-open field. Immediately, a flock of red-winged blackbirds swoops down to scavenge what's left.
West Marin is a place, ultimately, where terrain is inseparable from character, and we are the luckier for it. That way, whether you're a dairyman with your feet planted firmly on the ground, or an artist with your eye on something a little more ephemeral, you never get skunked. -Elisabeth Ptak
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A Conservation Easement Primer:
How Does MALT Get the Money to Buy Easement
Founded in 1980 by ranchers and environmentalists, Marin Agricultural Land Trust has grown over the years from a seed of an idea into an organization holding easements on nearly 32,000 acres of irreplaceable farmland. One of the most frequently asked questions is, "How does MALT get the money to buy easements?" Today, funding comes from private donors, public agencies, and foundation grants, but this hasn't always been the case.
Until 1998, the bulk of funds came from Proposition 70, the California Wildlife, Coastal and Parkland Conservation Bond Act. Passed by California voters in June 1988, it included $15,000,000 for the purchase of easements to preserve Marin County farmland. MALT was the recipient of this money and spent it over the course of nine years, acquiring 25 easements, and permanently protecting about 15,000 acres. This steady income source greatly benefited the organization as a whole. During this time, MALT established itself as one of the most successful agricultural land preservation programs in the country, one which has become a national model.
By 1998, Proposition 70 dollars were almost depleted. After much discussion, the staff and Board of Directors initiated a three-year $10 million capital campaign. A full-time campaign director was hired, and donation solicitation began in January 1999. The campaign was an overwhelming success, raising $5 million from individual donations, $2.5 million from a Marin Community Foundation matching grant, and the remainder from public agencies such as the California State Coastal Conservancy.
Capital campaign contributions all go into MALT's Land Fund. This money is only used to pay for conservation easements and their associated costs, which have steadily and significantly increased over the years.
Between 1983 and 1990, easements averaged $460 per acre; between 1991 and 2001, the average cost increased to $1,060 per acre. Two transactions completed in 2002 averaged $1,700 per acre, mark the continued upward trend in easement costs that parallel the real estate boom of the late 1990s. With these increases, funding takes on a more important role than ever.
MALT's success hinges on its ability to offer agricultural landowners the option of selling a conservation easement as an alternative to the sale or development of their property. But to accomplish this, from now into the future, MALT must always be working to ensure funds are on hand. The capital campaign marked a real organizational shift. The current goal for easement program funding is to leverage, to the greatest extent possible, private and public funds. Towards this end, donations will continue to be solicited from individuals and foundations, at the same time that MALT competes with other conservation organizations for federal and state grants.
MALT has always been extremely fortunate to receive overwhelming public approval for its programs. We plan to keep working hard to do what we have been doing for over 20 years, and we hope we can continue to count on foundations, public agencies, and all our members to support our efforts to protect Marin County farmland forever from the threat of development.
-Susan Kester
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Coming Home to Eat
This spring Executive Director Bob Berner received the following letter from Jim and Margaret Gault, two long-time MALT supporters. It expresses their feelings about the importance of agriculture in Marin, and we thought you would be interested in reading it.
Dear Bob,
As you know, Margaret and I have been MALT members since its beginning in 1980. As the years go by, we become more enthusiastic about MALT's role in West Marin, and we are proud that MALT serves as a model for many other parts of the United States. We are writing now to express our thanks for the work which you and your staff, the volunteers, the financial contributors, and the Board of Directors put into this effort.
In looking back, Margaret and I can see how our perception of MALT's roles and its successes has evolved. Early on, our attraction to MALT was somewhat self-centered and subjective as we seemed to appreciate most of all the vast open expanses of rural landscapes, usually dotted with dairy cows and other farm animals. However, in recent years, our perspective has changed. We still like the open spaces, but we have come to understand what we should have known all along, that MALT's primary mission is to preserve agriculture (our source of food), not to preserve views.
We are not at all sure how many people in the United States understand and appreciate how significant (and unusual) it is to be able to access local sources of food. We suspect that many people take food for granted, and may not particularly care where it comes from so long as it is plentiful and cheap in the markets. So much of it has been processed and imported to the United States from all over the world.
By contrast, in West Marin we have our own dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, and soon-to-be Straus Family ice cream); our own meats (beef, lamb, etc.) and poultry; seafood (including mussels and oysters); salad greens; and vegetables, etc. Much of this is organically produced without hormones, pesticides, and herbicides. All is grown under local supervision by those with whom the community has close family and neighborly connections. This bounty from land and sea does not travel far or in mysterious ways to reach our kitchens. How fortunate can we be!
e have been thinking about this a lot in recent years, particularly as we read more and more about the global markets and the intensified use of biotechnology, genetic engineering, etc. We received a jolt when we read the May, 2002, issue of National Geographic; its lead article is entitled: "Food: How Safe? How Altered?," and it commences with the following comments: "As this global industry expands and evolves, scientists and consumers are raising more and more questions. How can we keep our food supply safe? And what might be the benefits and risks of ever-accelerating advances in genetic engineering?" If anything makes the case for protecting locally grown food for local consumption, it is this article.
Let's support our local ranchers, farmers, growers, producers, and their employees as much as we can. Let's eat this wonderful local food! Let's help MALT with our financial and moral support to keep our agricultural land producing. It is the food, not the views, which really count.
Many thanks,
Jim and Margaret Gault
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From Field to Table: Marin’s Annual Crop Report
The value of Marin County's agricultural production increased in 2001, up more than $2,000,000 from the previous year, according to the annual crop report issued by the Marin County Department of Agriculture, Weights, and Measures. Dairy ranchers here provide 20% of the Bay Area's milk supply, and milk continues to be the highest value crop produced. Sales of field, fruit and vegetable crops and aquacultural products showed some slight increases.
Livestock products $30,397,233
Livestock & poultry $10,552.165
Field, fruit & vegetable crops $7,668,177
Aquaculture $1,608,315
Nursery crops $ 674,467
Total $50,900,357
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Personal: Land Trust Seeks Relationship with Corporate Partner
In a newsletter published earlier this year, we described MALT's first-ever advertising campaign. Five local celebrities-filmmaker George Lucas, restaurateur Alice Waters, author Anne Lamott, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, and landscape painter Russell Chatham-agreed to lend their voices to the promotion because they believe that protecting Marin County farmland benefits all of us. A San Francisco agency, N2O Advertising, offered its creative talents pro-bono, and a team of MALT volunteers worked diligently to negotiate low rates with the various media where the ads would be placed.
A June launch brought MALT ads to Marin and San Francisco movie theatres, to free postcard racks in San Francisco cafés and clubs, and to KQED-FM's pledge drive and underwriting program. The goal of the campaign-to reach those who are unaware of MALT and our farmland preservation program-seems to be succeeding. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a lengthy article on the effort, and "hits" to our web site have increased. This first phase of ads will run through mid-August.
To maximize the impact and help us reach a wider audience, we are now planning a second round of ads for which we are seeking corporate partners. We have targeted Bay Area media outlets including newspapers, magazines, and bus sides and bus shelters as opportunities for corporations to add their names to those who support the preservation of Marin County farmland. To receive our corporate sponsor packet and arrange an informational meeting, contact Associate Director Elisabeth Ptak at eptak@malt.org or 415-663-1158, ext. 2.
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Good-Bye Sara
Sara Pearson has announced her resignation after 10 years as MALT's Development Director. She will continue working as a professional fundraising consultant to Marin County nonprofits which will enable her to spend more time with her two daughters. "Now that the girls are 7 and 12, I realize that, rather than needing me less, they need me more," she says. "And MALT's membership has grown so much that we really need a development director who can devote full-time attention to our wonderful donors."
Sara was an important part of the professional advancement of MALT's development department which now includes a full-time membership director and a capital funding director who have helped make the continued growth of MALT's easement program possible. In its first decade as an agricultural land trust, MALT purchased 19 easements. Then in 1992 alone, 10 new easements were added! Yet when Sara joined the staff that year, the organization had fewer than 2,000 members contributing $165,000 a year to the operating budget. As she leaves, we now count 4,600 members contributing more than $500,000 a year.
"I see MALT taking off," Sara says. "The capital campaign was a test to see whether we could reach out to the entire county, and its success showed we can. That support was key, and it demonstrates how much this community cares about preserving family farming as a way of life in Marin."
Besides writing special appeals letters and managing the new member acquisition program, one of Sara's favorite assignments at MALT was the production of the annual fall Directors' Barbecue which honors the many Sponsores, Patrons, and benefactors who sustain MALT's farmland preservation program. "The day of the barbecue, after all the preparations are over and the party begins, was always the best day of my year at MALT. It is such a pleasure to get to meet the wonderful people I've worked with all year. I'm looking forward to seeing them all again-but this time I plan to be there as a MALT donor!"
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Fall Hikes & Tours
Marin Agricultural Land Trust invites you to join us this summer in a series of hikes, tours, and special events. From fresh milk to grass-fed beef, from wine grapes to organic fruits and vegetables, Marin agriculturalists produce high quality, fresh food in many forms. The summer season offers lots of opportunities to sample the products of our farms and ranches and to get to know the people who produce them. We are especially grateful to the farmers and ranchers who open their land and give their time and experience in support of this popular program. To learn more about agriculture in Marin, order a copy of An Abundant Land, MALT's audio cassette tour of West Marin's ranching history by phoning 415-663-1158. Listen to it in your car on the way to a MALT event. You'll be amazed at what you'll learn! To view a listing and descriptions of MALT's Summer Hikes & Tours click here.
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