Oak Hill continues the legacy of Sonoma Valley family farms

Melissa Bucklin and her husband James Good took over Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen just before the pandemic hit. Bucklin’s grandmother, Anne Teller, began growing organic produce and flowers there 50 years ago and was a strong steward of the wildlife and water on the farm. Bucklin, 35, and her husband Jimi, 38, are determined to continue that legacy of land stewardship that has helped the Glen Ellen farm thrive throughout the years.

The farm has been hit by wildfire, drought and a pandemic. Surviving through these challenges is no easy task as small family farms must compete with the cheaper products produced by larger-scale industrial farms. Bucklin hopes that locals will understand why organic, ecologically sound and labor-intensive small operations must charge more for what they produce. That understanding and support is the only way some local family farms can continue to be sustainable.

Bucklin and her husband are biodynamic farmers and are trying to make the Oak Hill Farm even more organic by creating a “closed loop” system. That means everything needed for the farm would be produced on the farm. For instance, they’ve brought chickens and cows onto the property in order to move away from buying fertilizer. Instead, they’ll use the manure produced by these animals for fertilizer.

They are continuing to grow the flowers that Bucklin’s grandmother started selling years ago and the bulk of those are sold wholesale to the San Francisco Flower Market. The SF market shut down for a couple of months at the beginning of the pandemic, and that revenue loss was daunting for the small farm. “We cut labor in flowers and were able to spread it out into the produce side of the business,” Bucklin said. “Thankfully we didn’t have to lay anybody off.”

Fortunately, the pandemic turned out to be a boon for local produce. They sell most of their produce at their farm’s Red Barn Store and at the Sonoma farmers market. They also sell to the Glen Ellen Village Market, some local restaurants and to Good Eggs in San Francisco.

The pandemic posed several challenges to Bucklin and her husband. They have two boys, Bodhi, 8, and Jade, 12, who normally attend Sonoma Charter School.

“My husband and I were just brand new taking over this farm and we had to homeschool our kids at the same time,” she said. “That was extremely difficult.” She said they also felt blessed to have so much open space for their kids to be outdoors while sheltering in place.

Before they took over the farm it had suffered a difficult blow during the 2017 wildfires as fire swept through the farm destroying worker housing, a machine shop and a lot of perennial trees. The shop was rebuilt but the housing has not been replaced. “We’re definitely suffering from a lack of housing,” Bucklin said.

They don’t have enough employees. In the past, the farm was able to offer housing. “As a produce and flower farm, it’s hard to compete with the wages of other businesses in the area, particularly the vineyard industry,” Bucklin said. “Housing was something we had to offer. It’s hard to hire people at the wages we’re able to pay when housing in the area is so expensive.”

As fire season ramps back up again, they’re trying to maintain a safe perimeter around the farm but it’s difficult without enough workers.

“The fields are interspersed with forest and wild land,” Bucklin said. “If we had all the time in the world we could clear out all the forests and keep out all the dead brush and keep them mowed, but we just don’t have the manpower or the time. The best we can do is try to keep up on clearing brush and have a plan in place to get all the people and animals out if we have to.”

Another challenge for local farms is the drought and Oak Hill Farm is doing what it can to prepare for a water shortage. “Our water supply has so far remained steady,” Bucklin said. “We are lucky to have a good well and to be located in an area where water funnels off of the mountain and into our aquifer.”

“Our hearts ache to hear stories of so many farms whose reservoirs have run dry or whose water rights have been cut off,” Bucklin said. “We’re putting a lot of time and money into tightening up our water usage, fixing our old and very complex maze of underground water lines, repairing leaky fixtures and switching to more drip irrigation.”

“We are of course worried about running out of water and not being able to provide work for our staff, and we are always worried about the constant threat of wildfire on our very wild, forested farm,” she said. “All we can do for now is keep doing the best we can with the cards we are dealt.”

All of this is on top of the work required to run the farm. “I want the general public to understand how much work goes into growing food. I say food, but flowers also,” she said. “If protecting our ecological systems and providing stable, satisfying and reasonably paid work to the people who grow our food is important to them, they must be willing to pay more for those products.”

Industrial agriculture benefits from the use of chemicals and monocropping - the practice of planting large tracts of land with one crop. They also use large, specialized and expensive equipment to tend crops.

Bucklin explained that the alternative is small-scale, diverse agriculture which is more ecologically sound. “A diverse farm can plant many different crops in a small area, rotate crops between fields from one year to the next, and ideally even include livestock in that rotation,” she said. “A diversity of plants and animals helps protect the integrity of our ecological systems, the insects, birds, predators, bacteria, and fungi on which we all depend, whether we know it or not.”

Bucklin said that the costs involved in this style of agriculture are greater for several reasons. The planning and logistics involved in growing many crops, and rotating them, is complicated and labor intensive. The work is done by hand and they have to invest in different tools and supplies for each of the varied crops they grow.

“The weeds are pulled by hand rather than killed with chemicals,” she said. “We must cover crops to protect them from insects rather than drive a spray tank through an infested field to kill the pests. We must invest money and time into many different small marketing chains, rather than shipping it all to a distributor.” That location comes with a price because they have to pay higher land costs and wages to match the higher cost of living.

“This type of agriculture provides the opportunity for consumers to have a greater connection to the people and land that grow their food,” Bucklin said. Come what may, she is determined to continue the legacy created by her grandmother and to provide healthy, vibrant produce and flowers for locals to enjoy.