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Summer
2003 Newsletter
Sitting on the couch in her living room, 92-year-old Gladys Jacobsen Leiss slowly turns the pages of a photo album. The pictures in the book begin in 1945. That was the year she and her husband Bill moved to the 208-acre Hicks Valley ranch that is still her home on the banks of a crick, as she calls it, that empties into Estero de San Antonio. Though the house was nothing more than a shack
then, the beautiful ranch with its native perennial grasses and
its bay, madrone, buckeye, and oak woodlands appealed to the young
couple. "Bill liked it, and so did I," Mrs. Leiss recalls,
and so they made up their minds to buy the place. There they raised
two daughters, Betty and Nancy, as well as Gladys' brother's two
sons. There they milked cows, raised chickens, constructed ponds,
built bridges, fashioned a milking barn from handmade bricks, and
turned it all into a good business. This spring Mrs. Leiss sold an agricultural conservation
easement to MALT to permanently protect the land she loves from
subdivision and non-agricultural development. Because of its proximity
to Petaluma, the ranch was especially vulnerable. MALT paid the
appraised value of $542,500 for the easement. Funds were raised
entirely from MALT members and contributors. Now the ranch is part
of a chain of ten contiguous easement properties, totaling 7,000
acres Before her marriage, Gladys Jacobsen taught at
the one-room Halleck School (see Zimmerman easement story). She
and her husband started their married life in 1934 with a cow and
12 chickens, wedding gifts from her father. By the time they moved
to the ranch, that lively dowry had increased to 2,000 laying hens
and 32 cows, just about enough to make a living on the grassy acreage.
The couple took turns driving their pickup into town twice a week
to deliver farm-fresh eggs, while a young man would come each morning
from the creamery to pick up the twenty-four 10-gallon cans of milk
Bill put out after milking. It was hard labor, but Bill loved to work, "…and
that's why this place grew," Mrs. Leiss says. And he loved
to have her help building the dams and bridges that were necessary
for the operation. She would often pack a lunch and spend the day
in the fields, then come home with her husband to complete the daily
chores. Though Bill Leiss died in 1992, the ranch continues
to be operated by Betty Leiss Nunes and her husband George. They
oversee the three dozen beef cow-calf pairs that graze the property
today and also run their historic "A" Ranch, a dairy in
Point Reyes National Seashore. Mrs. Leiss is a matter-of-fact person, and her
reasons for selling an easement to MALT are practical ones. When
her own mother needed convalescent care, the family sold its Petaluma
ranch to finance the cost. If she herself ever has to move from
her home, Mrs. Leiss says she wants to be able to pay for the care
without sacrificing her property. But the look on her face as she surveys the land
from a hill freckled with serpentine rock and blanketed with spring's
first wildflowers-shooting stars, tidytips, buttercups, goldfields,
and poppies-tells another story. She points out the pond where Bill
liked to swim, then her own house and that of daughter Nancy, both
tucked into the valley below. Mrs. Leiss studied botany at UC Berkeley,
and though she finished her education with a teaching degree from
San Francisco State, she admits, "I've always been a flower
person." Indeed, it's hard to imagine her without this ranch-or
this lovely ranch without her. Zimmerman Easement Allows Transfer of Ranch to Next Generation As a founder of the Tomales History Center, Mary
McCullough Zimmerman appreciates tradition. In fact, the house where
she and her husband Merv live is the former Halleck School, a one-room
schoolhouse built in 1862 on the ranch overlooking Tomales Bay.
The building was modernized to suit their growing family over the
years, but the original roof still rises to a peak above the front
door. Windows on either side have the same thick wavy glass they
had when young Gladys Jacobsen (see Leiss easement story) was the
teacher from 1933-35, and the original cast-iron school bell is
mounted in a place of honor near the front gate. While it's tempting to look at agriculture through
the lens of the past, many of today's West Marin ranchers are caught
between history and a hard place. On the one hand, they may be part
of a tradition that goes back five or six generations, as it does
with Merv and Mary. Both are descendants of dairymen who settled
in the area in the mid-19th century. Both spent their own childhoods
pitching in with a capital "P"- before school, after school,
and every single summer. The ranches they grew up on, and later
their own operation, were self-sufficient enterprises that included
chickens, pigs, beef and dairy cows, and a big vegetable garden.
Hard work was taken for granted because, "You had freedom,
you had friends around," Merv says, opening his arms to the
rolling hills that surround his Marshall home on three sides. On the other hand, ranchers struggling with commodity
prices that haven't kept pace with the cost of living are increasingly
forced to make choices that could end longstanding traditions. Three
years ago, the Zimmermans closed the dairy Merv's father had started
in 1941, replacing it with a herd of beef cattle and another of
dairy heifers. As Merv and Mary reached retirement age, their
youngest son Bill wanted to continue the family business which he's
helped operate for the past 20 years. He and his wife Sharon, the
parents of four children, both have jobs off the ranch in addition
to running the current livestock operation, but they didn't have
the resources to buy out Bill's parents. Now their decision to sell
an agricultural conservation easement to MALT will enable them to
purchase the 308-acre Diamond Z Ranch from Merv and Mary. "Selling
an easement is the only way we could afford to buy the ranch. We've
saved it for another generation," Bill said. MALT paid the
appraised price of $677,000 with funding from the California Coastal
Conservancy and the California Department of Conservation's Farmland
Conservancy Program. An old milk can marked "710" sits in
one corner of the schoolhouse kitchen. It's a reminder of the time
not so many years ago when the number meant the Grade A milk inside
came from the Diamond Z. A driver from the cooperative creamery
in Petaluma picked up the milk each and every day without fail.
"Our biggest treat," Mary remembers, "was to take
a boat across the bay for a picnic." The boat may have been
rickety and the water choppy, but the children played in the sand,
and the day was fine. "Then we'd come home and milk the cows." As it was more than the occasional picnic that
kept families in agriculture then, so it will take a concerted effort
to keep the tradition alive today. MALT's program is one option
for West Marin farmers. "But agriculture in California, as
well as in rest of the United States, has a great struggle to survive,"
Bill Zimmerman cautions. "It's not just out here in West Marin.
It's nationwide." Summer Ag Institute Inspires Local Teachers Gardening space is limited at Laurel Dell Elementary
School in suburban San Rafael, so the children plant in barrels
and cultivate spaces between classrooms. They harvest lettuce, carrots,
flowers, herbs, and an understanding of Marin County's agricultural
legacy. Space is not an issue at Dunbar Elementary School
in rural Glen Ellen; there, the children spread like pollen over
the half-acre that is the fledgling school garden. They plan, then
weed and cultivate the long-fallow soil they'll soon sow with crops
they've watched germinate over the past two months-corn, peas, pumpkins,
iris, even sorghum. These two school garden programs are very different
in scale and setting, but they share a common inspiration-MALT's
Summer Agricultural Institute. This annual three-day seminar has
provided teachers from schools all over the Bay Area-among them
the two teachers who have fostered the garden programs at Dunbar
and Laurel Dell-with the tools and knowledge they need to integrate
lessons on agriculture and the environment into their curriculums. Lisa Hanley, who teaches a class of third and
fourth graders, has nurtured the gardens at Laurel Dell. Though
only a year old, plantings in the main garden, salad garden, and
12 barrels have already yielded two harvests. "With the limited
space, we've had to be very creative," she said. "The
whole campus will be a garden pretty soon." I'm the garden coordinator at Dunbar, and have
been hired on a temporary, part-time basis to fortify a garden program
that has been ably, if sporadically, managed for several years by
volunteers. My goals: to create a program that will include both
hands-on work in the dirt and a customized classroom curriculum;
to secure ongoing funding for the program; and to see both the garden
and the educational programs built around it become self-sustaining. Lisa and I agree that, without the resources and
information provided at MALT's Summer Ag Institute, we'd have a
much harder time reaching our goals. Curriculum guides, funding
opportunities, garden resources, fact sheets, and more were provided
to participants at the 2002 Institute we both attended. Both Lisa
and I draw from all these sources, and Lisa has also taken advantage
of MALT's invitation to bring her students on field trips to Marin
ranches. Her class has been out to Anne Murphy's Point Reyes ranch,
and also plans to visit the Nunes Ranch. "We study Marin history
through agriculture," Lisa said, explaining that the garden
and local agriculture provide a focus for her teaching. At Dunbar the garden curriculum is separate from
what goes on otherwise in the classroom, though I've found that
teachers quickly tie what we do in the garden to other lessons.
As third-graders energetically yanked weeds with hands and hoes,
one teacher asks them to imagine themselves pioneers, and to think
about what would have come before this tilling process (clearing
the land of trees, seeking a water source, etc.), and what would
have come after (planting, harvesting, preserving the harvest, etc.).
Another teacher has his students figure the perimeter and area of
the garden space; yet another incorporates garden terminology into
language arts lessons. Ag Institute instruction also fortified the commitment
both Lisa and I have to encouraging children to eat healthy foods,
both at school and at home. Lisa, who was introduced to MALT through
the Marin Food Systems Project, echoes one of that group's goals:
"I want to get nutritious food into the schools." Under
the auspices of a school garden program, we as teachers can ask
questions about food production, transportation, and content, and
we can also provide healthy snacks. We both have marveled at what
the kids will eat when they've helped it grow-salads, tomatoes-foods
they usually shun at home. The inspiration and information provided by MALT through the Summer Ag Institute has been key to the success of the gardens at Laurel Dell and Dunbar schools. It's provided the framework within which the children have blossomed, and has enabled us, as teachers, to learn from the kids as well. The Marin Summer Agricultural Institute for K-12 teachers is scheduled for June 17-19, 2003. The three-day workshop includes farm visits and hands-on training in curriculum and lesson plans. The $55 fee includes all materials. A stipend is available to Marin teachers who complete the training, and college credit is available through Dominican University. The Institute is presented by the Marin Agricultural Education Alliance, of which MALT is a member. For information, call 415-499-5877. Agriculture's Role in Water
Quality Management California's watersheds function by collecting,
storing, and releasing water. Additionally, watersheds are pathway
for nutrients and sediment and provide important wildlife habitat.
Protecting these functions and related water quality has been the
focus of state and federal agencies implementing environmental regulations
to prevent impacts from numerous sources including agricultural
land use, domestic septic systems, recreational boat use, and others.
These agencies also deliver technical and financial assistance programs
to assist land use managers in mitigation of impacts to water quality.
Similarly, local partnerships have formed to facilitate
resource conservation and water quality management. This combination
of environmental regulations, conservation programs, and partnerships
is present in western Marin County and the Tomales Bay Watershed,
as well. Here the goals are both improving water quality and maintaining
the viability of agricultural land use. The formation of such partnerships and organizations
is not a new phenomenon in West Marin. One of the most recent is
the Tomales Bay Agricultural Group (TBAG). In 1999, 18 livestock
agriculture producers formed TBAG with representation from the Natural
Resource Conservation Service, Marin County Resource Conservation
District, University of California Cooperative Extension, and other
organizations. Through funding from the Marin Community Foundation,
UC Cooperative Extension is conducting a five-year research and
education program on 10 TBAG member ranches and dairies. Staff conduct
storm event water-quality monitoring of surface runoff from these
operations and share results with TBAG members to prioritize mitigation
and restoration projects. Results indicate that much of the land
within these operations is functioning similarly to other similar
watersheds that don't have livestock agriculture. Results also confirm
the importance of a functioning manure storage system designed to
capture 90-95 % of the potential bacteria and nutrients that could
be delivered to the watershed. Other practices that have the greatest
potential to deliver bacteria and nutrients include smaller corrals
and lots, as well as some larger, more intensively managed pastures.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control
Board, an extension of the State Water Resources Control Board,
is currently developing and implementing a water quality regulation
to reduce water-borne pathogens. The Total Maximum Daily Load for
Pathogens in Tomales Bay (TMDL) is a strategy to identify pathogen
sources within the watershed and provide directives to reduce contributions
from these sources. Both human and agricultural pathogen sources
are identified in this draft document, in addition to background
or wildlife contributions. Agricultural source stakeholders are
called upon to develop and implement a ranch or dairy water quality
management plan. Third party monitors are proposed to evaluate management
plan implementation and effectiveness to improve water quality. The strategy is currently available in draft form
for public review and comment at http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb2/download/TMDL2000.doc.
Staff will collect all comments by the end of May, revise the strategy,
and present the final draft to its Board later this year. Agriculture will continue to have a role in the
management of water quality both as an identified source of impairment
and as an opportunity for maintaining and enhancing watershed functions.
By recognizing and supporting the latter through programs and partnerships
that address the former, agricultural production can grow as a viable
alternative for land use in the Tomales Bay watershed and elsewhere. MALT's Board of Directors has committed up to 5% of the funds raised in its recent capital campaign to help reduce water pollution and enhance riparian corridors on agricultural lands subject to conservation easements. The funds are distributed through the Stewardship Assistance Plan. Despite Economy,
Local Producers Determined to Keep Ranching The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) this spring released the results of a survey on the status of Marin County agriculture-the producers, their farms and ranches, their products, markets, and plans for the future. Survey results confirm many positive aspects of Marin County agriculture, according to a summary, "…from the variety of products being grown here, to the increasing interest in organic production. It also revealed the troubling fact that a majority of Marin agricultural producers either find their operations marginally profitable or unprofitable." Nonetheless, 90% of those polled said they have no plans to sell with the next five years. Ellie Rilla, Director UCCE, Marin County, spearheaded the research. "This survey provided a perfect opportunity to ask farmers and ranchers about their practices, opinions, and needs," she said. "Help with the permitting process rated highest. In response, the County has approved the hiring of an agricultural advocate to assist in this area." Of special interest to MALT was the finding that 27% of the respondents have protected their ranches with agricultural conservation easements, and another 19% are considering a conservation easement for their property. MALT Executive Director Bob Berner observed
that, "The report is extraordinarily encouraging in terms of
interest in preserving farmland through easements, but the economic
viability of agriculture is something we all have to be concerned
about." The complete survey may be read at www.ucce.ucdavis.edu. For 22 years we've worked hard to
invite people to help us preserve agricultural land in Marin by
becoming MALT members and renewing their memberships each and every
year. We now have more than 4,900 member supporters-an indication
of how strongly people believe in the preservation of West Marin's
agricultural landscape and rural character. Naturally, most of our members live
in Marin County, but we also have members from around the Bay Area
for whom West Marin is only a short drive or invigorating bicycle
ride away. People who once lived here but have moved maintain their
memberships because they remember what a special place this is.
Even visitors from much farther away send their support because
they love this area and believe that preserving farmland here is
important. By renewing memberships annually,
by giving extra contributions in response to our newsletters and
appeals, by remembering MALT as a memorial to someone special, our
members - you, wherever you live - have built the foundation of
our success. Thank you. What else can you do to help? What do a Pt. Reyes journalist, a
Stanford researcher, a retired elementary Earlier this year, new and established
MALT volunteers came together to learn about our organization, to
understand the conservation easement and stewardship programs, and
to soak up information about the politics and economics of agriculture. We host these trainings annually.
To join our team and become a MALT volunteer, contact Volunteer
Coordinator Leah Smith at lsmith@malt.org or 415-663-1338.
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