Organic Farming

In a 57-acre valley, where the traffic consists mostly of deer and rattlesnakes, 19-year-old Christophe Devlies and the four other unpaid farm workers take a break. Their morning began at 5 a.m. with yoga or meditation; now, the fields of organic eggplant and other crops can wait. Lanky, with a blond ponytail, Devlies ducks into the four-bedroom farmhouse to escape the heat in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

The gig: Craig McNamara is a sustainable farming expert, organic walnut farmer in the Sacramento Valley town of Winters, founder of the nonprofit Center for Land-Based Learning and the California Farm Academy, and president of the state Board of Food and Agriculture, which advises state officials on farming policies. Organic food basket: At his Sierra Orchards, Craig McNamara makes extensive use of pro-environment and conservation techniques as he grows 450 acres of organic walnuts, presses organic olive oil from 150 trees that are more than a century old and helps his son raise hops for a local craft beer.

While it is nice that ranchers try to coordinate spraying of poisons near schools to avoid times when students are present, they should not receive an award for doing so. As an organic citrus grower with "conventional" neighbors, I know the attitude all too well. These people see it as their God-given right to farm and consider these poisons that reach far beyond their crop to be an integral part of the process. Is it not these kids' right to have a pesticide- and herbicide-free campus?

Rain Dragon A Novel Jon Raymond Bloomsbury: 272 pp., $16 paper FADE IN: A car idles in the foggy pre-dawn, pointed at the end of a cul-de-sac. Inside, an attractive 30-ish couple, DAMON and AMY, are worn from travel. She is dark-haired, pale-skinned and tense, and she leans against the passenger window. Behind the wheel, he carefully watches her mood as they evaluate the appearance of an owl in front of them. Good omen or bad? They can't decide, and continue on, lost.

Organic agriculture generally comes at a cost of smaller harvests compared with conventional agriculture, but that gap can be narrowed with careful selection of crop type, growing conditions and management techniques, according a new study. Organic farming has been touted by supporters as a more environmentally sustainable method of farming that's better for consumers because crops contain fewer man-made chemicals. But without the high-nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides often employed in conventional agriculture, it's also less efficient.

Although few people have heard of Aguanga, 20 miles east of Temecula and a few miles north of Mount Palomar, it's home to a most unusual, almost magical farm. The town's name (pronounced a-WONG-a), meaning "plentiful water" in the Cahuilla Indian language, hints at the aquifer that underlies Cahuilla Mountain Farm and sustains its agriculture and wildlife.

"EPA Allows Planting Of Biotech Corn" [Oct. 17] fails to address the threat to the fastest-growing segment of agriculture in this country: organic farming. It ignores the crisis that organic corn farmers face every summer as they wonder whether genetically engineered corn pollen will drift into their fields and contaminate their crops. It leaves out the fact that foreign markets are increasingly rejecting U.S. corn harvests due to the presence of biotech corn, and many countries are adopting stringent standards to detect contamination.

Michael Halperin inspected rows of organic broccoli--actually just a few inches of green leaves popping out from the soil--and said, "Business is great." Indeed, things are going so well for this veteran organic farmer that he decided to buy 200 acres of cropland to supplement the 68 he already works near the small Northern California town of Hollister. Halperin's was one of several farms that were toured as part of the 10th Annual Ecological Farming Conference held in Pacific Grove.

"A Town's Revenge" combines a history lesson in McCarthyism with an argument for organic farming. It's an ambitious if unlikely attempt to illustrate the importance of standing up for one's belief. The "ABC Afterschool Special," written by Bruce Harmon, directed by Helen Whitney and airing at 3 p.m. today on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42, focuses on a rural town in turmoil.

Bob Cantisano is an organic farmer with a ponytail that reaches the small of his back. Everyone calls him Amigo Bob. Jack Pandol Sr. is an agribusinessman with thousands of acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland and an export operation that sells fruits and vegetables to more than 40 countries. He is a prominent Kern County Republican. In the past, the two men had little respect for each other's methods of farming.

Organic agriculture generally comes at a cost of smaller harvests compared with conventional agriculture, but that gap can be narrowed with careful selection of crop type, growing conditions and management techniques, according a new study. Organic farming has been touted by supporters as a more environmentally sustainable method of farming that's better for consumers because crops contain fewer man-made chemicals. But without the high-nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides often employed in conventional agriculture, it's also less efficient.

Of the many Southern Californians starting urban farms these days, few have stories more colorful than Brett and Tanya Wyatt of B&T Farm . Brett, 53, was an observant Jew studying geography at UC Davis, then a Buddhist monk in Myanmar, where he managed to flee just before the regime raided his monastery. He then earned a doctorate analyzing organic farming concepts in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he met Tanya, 44, who supervised a farm group and grew mushrooms. A year ago he returned to California to teach computer skills at a public high school in Watts, and they promptly decided to establish an urban farm.

- Morning fog weaves its way through colorful rows of vegetables, herbs and flowers as staff and apprentices gather at the center of the garden at Esalen Institute. It's 7 a.m. The freshly awakened faces sit calmly in a circle for a morning meditation, listening to the Pacific Ocean until the sound of chimes lets meandering minds know it's time to tend to the day's harvest. Bins of chard, arugula, parsley, radishes and carrots are picked, washed and delivered to the back door of the kitchen, roughly 1,250 feet from the field.

Kelly Bayer took a vacation from her job in a sleep laboratory by toiling in a vegetable patch in Santa Barbara. The sun beat down on her back as she worked a garden hose over a collection of tomatoes, peppers, carrots and onions that would eventually be consumed on the organic farm. "I'm kind of interested in farming and sustainable living," Bayer said, before giving away a bit of her real motivation for working on the farm: a quick and cheap way to visit the West Coast. Bayer, 26, was part of an itinerant crew passing through the one-acre property that included a nursing student from Korea, an engineering student from France and a free-spirited 18-year-old fleeing the East Coast before starting college.

Terry Eski had been itching to grow her own food for years, but living in a Chicago condominium, she lacked the space to garden. Until 2009, that is, when Eski, her husband and two children moved north to Prairie Crossing, a master-planned farm community in the suburb of Grayslake, Ill. There, she lives across the street from a 100-acre organic farm, has access to a community garden and spends Saturdays collecting fresh-laid eggs. FOR THE RECORD: Farm communities: In an article in the Nov. 29 Section A on new home developments built around organic farms, the first name of Daron Joffe, who has helped design farm developments, was incorrectly given as Devon.

Saying he didn't want to damage California's agricultural economy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation bill that would have given farmworkers the same rights to overtime pay enjoyed by all other hourly workers in California. Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to business and reverse longstanding labor practices, Schwarzenegger wrote in a veto message. As recently as 1999, state lawmakers approved a bill that specifically exempted farmworkers from the eight-hour day, he said, "recognizing that agricultural work is different from other industries: it is seasonal, subject to unpredictability of Mother Nature and requires the harvesting of perishable goods."

Like most American farmers in the early 1950s, Don Lambert and his father decided to try a new concept that was sweeping across the nation's farmlands. So they set aside 25 acres on the 800-acre farm that the elder Lambert had started in 1909 in the rolling hills of southeastern Washington.

— It's a reality show that sounds tailor-made for a buzzy cable network like Bravo: A hip gay couple from Manhattan tries to make a go at organic farming in upstate New York. But "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" is premiering Wednesday on Planet Green, a young eco-channel seeking to rev up its reputation with a prime-time schedule built more around high-drama characters than how-to environmentalism. With a new slate that includes programs about chefs, a fashion designer and a boutique owner, the channel's theme of sustainability is being stretched to include not only global warming and recycling, but also selling vintage clothes.

Unzipping my bee veil, I popped a piece of fresh honeycomb in my mouth. The nectar, warmed by the South Australian winter sun, was delicate, perhaps because it's produced by the only purebred population of Ligurian bees on the planet. Or perhaps it's because I, a worker bee from the city, harvested it. My work at the Island Beehive's apiary on Kangaroo Island was possible because of a program called WWOOF, short for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, designed to get city slickers out of the concrete jungle and back to the land.