Fall Harvest Festival next weekend!

Thursday, October 26
The Ferry Building's Harvest Festival begins at 4 pm, when California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) brings together over 20 vintners & microbreweries from around the state for a tasting. Ferry Building food vendors will pair with visiting vintners and breweries to offer sample snacks and accompaniments, many made with certified organic ingredients. Tickets are $25 at the door for 10 tastes, a souvenir glass and plate.

Saturday, October 28
Harvest activities at the Saturday farmers' market include an apple tasting from 11 am to 1 pm; butter churning, wool spinning, and apple pressing from 11 am to 2 pm; and a hands-on preserving class taught by Happy Girl Kitchen’s Todd Champagne from 10 am to 11 am. To reserve your spot at the class, email shanti@cuesa.org. The cost is $5 and onlookers are welcome to view the demonstration at no charge.

Sunday, October 29
The Sunday farmers' market will feature live music, apple pressing, wool spinning, butter churning and a Barnyard by the Bay petting zoo. Special autumnal events in the Marketplace include tastings of honey, olive oil and salt.

The Gourmet Wine Cellar returns to the Ferry Building

On Thursday, November 16 from 6 to 9 pm, The Gourmet Wine Cellar is holding a benefit for CUESA at the Ferry Building. Come for appetizers from top restaurants, wine tasting sessions, and a cooking demonstration and book signing with Gourmet executive chef Sara Moulton! Tickets are $90 if purchased before October 31, and CUESA e-letter readers get an extra $10 off by entering the promotion code "CUESA." For more information and to reserve your spot, visit www.GourmetScoop.com.

Saturday, October 21 ~ Market to Table events

10:00 am - Meet the farmer
Grant Brians of Heirloom Organics

10:30 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Susan Beach of iSimmer.com

Saturday, October 26 ~ Fall Harvest Festival!

See announcement above for details.

Nights are getting longer, and stone fruits, berries, basil and other sun-loving crops are taking up less and less space at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. As summer harvests wane, so does the amount of work to do on many farms. Agriculture is a naturally seasonal industry, and labor needs can vary widely throughout the year. For farm workers, achieving continuity and job security is challenging. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for growers to find seasonal labor.

For years now, farmers say, the pool of workers available for seasonal employment has been shrinking. One reason for this scarcity is that Mexican immigrants are moving into urban areas in search of higher-paying service and construction jobs that they hope will provide more security. For immigrant families, year-round work in a permanent location is crucial; job stability allows them to have confidence signing a lease, sending their children to school and settling in a community. This year, the agricultural labor shortage resulted in tons of unharvested fruit in the Central Valley (click here for NY Times article), and Grant Brians of Heirloom Organics says he knows of labor camps that in the past have housed 80 or 90 workers but housed fewer than ten this year. Luckily, Grant doesn’t have to look for seasonal labor: Heirloom Organics strategically plans their cropping patterns to maintain a year-round harvest and thus a permanent labor force.

Diversity provides insurance for many of the unpredictable variables of farming, and labor is no exception. Farms that grow large monocultures (one variety of one crop) need many workers all at once for harvest—exactly the type of labor that is difficult to come by. Planting a diversity of crops that ripen at different times throughout the year is a way to keep workers, and also keep them happier. For this reason, many Ferry Plaza Farmers Market growers have not been impacted by the labor shortage.

Victor Martino of Bella Viva Orchards says his desire for a mostly full-time labor force has influenced his mix of crops and varieties tremendously. His goal is to make the labor situation sustainable for both the farm and the workers, and diversifying his farm has been an important way of doing that. Victor and five field workers grow stone fruits, nuts, apples, figs, grapes, persimmons, pomegranates, citrus fruits, and pears on his 55 acres of land. His year-round crew has saved him from the plight of neighboring farms, some of whom have suffered great losses in recent years for lack of workers to harvest their crops.

Fitz Kelly of Fitzgerald’s Farm grows over 70 varieties of stone fruit with ripening times staggered throughout late spring and summer. This allows the farm to employ seasonal workers for at least six months and attend farmers’ markets for over 4 months. His two year-round workers, Ramiro and Chon, take paid vacation for six or seven weeks a year when there simply isn’t anything to do on the farm. Fitz says this is a small price to pay to keep reliable laborers who are intimately familiar with his farm, and it also provides stability for them.

For an operation to be sustainable, both workers and employers must be satisfied with their situation. Growers need laborers to plant, weed, prune, and harvest; farm workers need steady wages to support themselves and their families. We applaud farmers like Grant, Victor and Fitz, and the workers that help them bring food to our tables every week, for finding creative (and diverse!) solutions to yet another challenge of farming.

This is the most up-to-date information as of Friday when we send this letter. Please understand that there are always last minute changes--it's the nature of farming!