T&D Willey Farms

Organic Farm | Madera, California

farmer-woodcut

© 2023 Copyright T & D Willey Farms
Madera, California 93637
Site Design: Rohner Design

It was welcome news to read in today’s (10-29-15) Fresno Bee that momentum builds to employ winter-fallowed farmlands, including dormant orchards and vineyards for Valley aquifer recharge should anticipated El Nino flood flows materialize. My well and pump man Hollis Priest was on the farm last week tuning us up when I asked him what sort of water table declines he was observing over this irrigation season. Hollis reports the Clovis area remains stable, while other communities, like Raisin City, have experienced drops of greater than 50 feet. In our case, we’ll commission an official Pump Test soon, but our well’s yield decline, from 800 gallons per minute down to 650 GPM, over this summer indicates Madera’s water table has suffered significantly. Warmer than average high temperatures this fall have [Read more…]

denesse

It is great fun to host so many of you on our farm and if you missed the formal guided tours, we remind you that the farm is open for informal, self-guided, walking tours during our regular business hours for any CSA members who wish to see their food being grown. Whether you are from Mountain Meadow Farms, Abundant Harvest Organics or Ooooby, we ask that you give us just a day’s notice so we will know when to expect you and who is on the farm. We hope this opportunity will increase your sense of connectedness to your food shed and security in how it is being managed. –denesse

denesse

“The medical profession is only beginning to recognize that no amount of medical technology will enable us to have healthy humans on a sick planet.”  ― Thomas Berry 

Usually, I welcome the autumnal equinox with as much gratefulness as the vernal crossing brings trepidation. Even with last week’s light showers, our farm appears a bit dingy and dusty, despite running a water wagon over its roads six days a week. Cool nights are welcome to many of our fall seedings. The Autumn Farm Tour will feature beets, carrots, lettuce, kale, turnips, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, leeks, chilies, sweet peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, parsley, dill, baby bok choy, basil, fennel, parsnips, rutabagas, Brussels sprouts and spinach. Reservations are required, directions are on the “Farm Tour”  page.

Mr Willey

In May of this year, a group of five Certified Organic fruit and vegetable farmers, whose combined careers represent 147 years’ experience in biological agriculture, approached the nation’s largest USDA National Organic Program (NOP) certifier, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), for help in defending our Certified Organic label’s value in a volatile marketplace.

This appeal was prompted by the nation’s iconic retailer of Certified Organic produce, Whole Foods Market (WFM), recent rollout of their proprietary fruit, vegetable and flower “Responsibly Grown” rating system in its 400 stores. The stated purpose of this initiative, examining and rating Conventional and Certified Organic WFM produce suppliers on parameters of soil health, pesticide use, food safety, labor practices, greenhouse gases, water conservation, waste reduction and [Read more…]

denesse

An aging farmer ponders succession

Our three grown, college-educated children pursue careers other than cultivating the soil they’ve watched their parents tend for thirty-some seasons on several farms. The intimate, personal-farmer relationship we have enjoyed with thousands of local families through T&D Willey Farms‘ CSA program over the last dozen years is, without doubt, the most gratifying experience of our farming career. It is also the most exhausting. Desiring to perpetuate and further elaborate the local farm-to-family network our CSA initiated, we have begun collaboration with a new, visionary, community-based organization Read the rest of the story