Farmers Hawk Benefits of Going Organic

On a recent Saturday at the Sherman Oaks Farmers Market, one shopper exclaimed, “Wow, heirloom tomatoes for $3 a pound! I can get tomatoes at the supermarket for way less.”

“Yes, but these are organic,” another shopper replied.

With most people being budget-conscious these days, organic produce may seem a luxury. But take a moment to talk to the farmers who bring their produce each week to the Farmers Market on Sepulveda Boulevard, run by the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. You’ll learn about freshness, taste, varieties of produce unavailable in stores, higher nutritional content and the lack of pesticides and hormones.

These farmers speak with dedication and enthusiasm about growing organic produce and raising livestock on farms that range in size from three to 200 acres, located up to an hour and a half away. They rise before dawn to hand-pack their offerings in boxes, load trucks and vans, drive to Sherman Oaks and set up their booths, eager to talk to and educate consumers.

“Before, I worked on conventional farms,” said farmer Manuel Buenrostro, owner of Meños Farms in Riverside. “I know what they put on strawberries and tomatoes: a lot of pesticides.”

“I try to work different,” he said, proudly displaying a photo of himself and the market manager, Carol Gallegos, standing amid a row of vegetables in one of his fields.

At the Rancho De Rigo stall, 18-year-old Leticia Trinidad and her mother, Maria, squeezed juice from oranges picked just the day before at their 18-acre farm in Piru, near Ventura, and set out tiny samples of the sweet, golden juice.

“Here, it’s fresh,” Leticia said of the juice. “In the store, it’s been there for a long time, a really long time.”

Chris McKinnon, a worker from Tutti Frutti farms in Lompoc, said more than 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes exist and that the farm he works for grows eight varieties, based on taste. Larger conventional farms may pick tomatoes, not for taste, he said, but to survive the rough transport as tons are thrown together in huge tractor-trailers.

“Even if they’re not organic, locally grown vegetables and fruits are going to taste better because they’re a lot closer coming out of the ground,” McKinnon added.

Many of the famers at the market are certified by the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a trade association which in July began a Pesticides Bug Me! educational campaign. The campaign includes information about the amount of pesticides applied to California’s land—more than 156 million pounds, it claims—and says pesticides are associated with birth defects, childhood brain cancers and other ailments, as well as the massive die-off of honeybees.

The CCOF’s website on the campaign (ccof.org/pesticidesbugme) also contains an informational flier, “Top Reasons to Buy Organic,” which argues that organic farming conserves water and limits harmful agricultural runoff, an environmental benefit.

But some customers Saturday needed no education or persuasion about the benefits of organic foods.

“I can tell when I eat meat with hormones,” said June Rosenberry, who was buying grass-fed beef at the DeyDey’s Best Beef Ever stand. “It makes me feel bloated and just sick.”

Fliers at DeyDey’s said the cows that provide DeyDey's beef are not fed grains or corn, or given hormones to fatten them quickly or injected with antibiotics to prevent infections from being in close, crowded quarters as in conventional feed lots, but are put out to pasture to feed on grass.

It is for such reasons that Luisita Dela Rosa shops at the Farmers Market. She said her 30-year-old daughter suffers from a seizure disorder and stomach problems, which doctors have been unable to treat. So Dela Rosa switched her daughter’s diet to organic foods.

“It’s only been a couple of weeks, but her tummy’s been quieter,” she said.