Aging farmers looking to retire stumped by lack of buyers for their business
SANTA ROSA (KPIX) -- Right off Santa Rosa's Airport Boulevard is a place where time seems to have stopped decades ago.
To a stranger, it may seem like just another patch of land but, for Wayne James and his sister Lee, it's heaven on earth.
"When it's nice and lush and green, you come out here and you can lie down in the furrow and look straight up at the sky and it's absolutely gorgeous," Wayne said.
For more than 40 years, the James siblings have been busy building their family farm, Tierra Vegetables , into a culinary institution. Their produce can be found in 5-star restaurants and trendy farmers' markets. Customers sometimes travel hours just to get their hands on some of their mouthwatering veggies.
"It's the only way to eat vegetables," Lee said. "There's no sense of buying a tomato at the store, it's not a tomato."
Everything here is grown the old-fashion way, hand -picked with no pesticides or preservatives.
"Starting with something that tastes really good, you don't have to do much," Wayne said. "You just serve it and it not only tastes really well, it has tremendous vitamins and food value."
After all these years, working from dusk till dawn, Wayne and Lee are hoping to take a little off, maybe even retire.
"I'm tired of seven days a week," Lee said. "I just want to slow down."
Fnding a successor has been a hard row to hoe. Wayne is 66, Lee just turned 70. Neither of the siblings has children and, even if they did, there's no guarantee they would take on their business.
"It is a lot of work," Wayne said. "Some generations have decided to go do more profitable things."
More and more small farmers like the Jameses are having a tough time finding someone to take over the family business which are facing skyrocketing land prices and stiff competition from big corporate farms and severe weather due to climate change. According to the last agriculture census the average age of farmers is now over 57.
Wayne and Lee say that, for now, they'll continue working, farming smaller crops but, unless they can find someone to take over, they'll eventually have to close down.
Lee prays it won't come to that.
"I'll keep trying to find someone to take over the farm until I can't anymore," she said.