New farmers’ biggest challenge: Finding land to farm

Gillyflower Farm in Capay (Yolo County) is so new that owner Laura Reynolds has no tractors, employees or spare cash. By late fall, she has only planted one-third of her 1-acre plot. On harvest day for her weekly customer deliveries, which focus on greens and salad-friendly vegetables, she cools the produce in a generator-powered freezer that she unplugs before ice crystals form. The recent UC Davis grad and longtime farm intern does have good land, though, and the ear of her landlord, Sherri Wood, when problems arise. That’s because Wood is building her house a few hundred feet away. Read more