Pasture 42 inspired by ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’

By Dan Kennedy Special to The Enterprise

Many Davisites love to buy from a sustainable, organic, local farm that pastures its animals.

These customers pay more for its offerings because they realize how hard it is for such smallscale farmers to make it all work financially ... and of course quality is typically five-star.

This type of small farm first bloomed in America’s popular imagination in 2006. That’s when Michael Pollan published the best-selling “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which had a national impact. We’ll be talking about a local farm shortly, but first we want to look at Pollan’s account.

Pollan’s book particularly celebrated Polyface Farm, established in 1961 by a young family in the Shenandoah Valley. The Salatins started from scratch by purchasing abused acreage. Thirty years later, when Pollan immersed himself at the farm for a test week, he found enriched soil and a healthy ecosystem, generating meat, produce, and other products of the highest quality.

Pollan poetically wrote that, during a pause from the hard work, he noticed “the low gossip of hens and the lower throat singing of turkeys ... On the shoulder of a hill rising to the west I could see a small herd of cattle grazing ... and below them on a gentler slope, several dozen portable chicken pens marching in formation down the meadow.” Very pastoral, rewarding in many ways, but certainly not an easy life.

After his experience of the hard labor, Pollan also wrote, “I would never again begrudge a farmer any price he cared to name for his product: one dollar for an egg seemed entirely reasonable.”

Ken Mullar says he was among those inspired by Pollan. First he and his wife Susan worked a small holding in Oregon. Then, in 2013, they relocated to 32 acres in the Capay Valley, bringing those values to their new pastures.

“I never thought I’d be doing what I am,” Ken explained recently, shutting down his tractor to talk. Now we only had to raise our voices above the cackling of chickens in a portable coop like the one Salatin and other such farmers use to shuttle their birds from spot to spot in the pasture.

Why does he? “I have to be building, making something. I’m not made for sitting behind a desk,” although he must have put in desk time during his years at Stanford, his alma mater.

Susan handles the marketing, bookkeeping and a myriad other farm tasks, working them in around her role as a mom and a home-schooling teacher. Armed with a master’s degree in environmental education, she runs a class that includes their two children, Oren and Delphine, plus six classmates from other families.

“We’ve structured our farm around our farmers markets,” Ken said. On weekends they’re in Davis, San Rafael and Marin. Their stand offers lots of products, which is what customers want to see. Olive oil, dried fruit, and infused balsamic vinegars can be on display year round, while the volume of pork, chicken, beef, eggs and lamb can vary by the week.

“It’s not easy, we’re not getting rich,” Ken said, when I asked about the economics. This past year especially, inflation drove up the cost of inputs beyond what they can pass on to customers.

I noticed on their Pasture 42 website a brief mention of how “sustainable” has been co-opted for marketing purposes in so many ways, it’s almost lost its meaning. But what is it, really?

Core practices include no pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or dosing animals with antibiotics or hormones.

Another key tenet is preserving, and ideally improving, the land’s fertility and health for future generations, rather than depleting it. Building a natural ecosystem probably says it all.

To illustrate, the Mullars spell out the feeding regimen leading to the pork they bring to market.

“Our pigs are raised primarily on raw cow’s milk, grains and pasture,” they explain. Fallen fruit, acorns and extra vegetables are also served up to these voracious omnivores. And when Ken processes chickens and turkeys, all the “waste” finds its way to the pigs as well.

I asked Susan for a customer profile of those buying from them at the farmers markets.

“They’re people who care about fresh. They value knowing that the animals are treated well, and living outside.” Ken had also emphasized, separately, that their customers truly engaged with the notion that their pasture plays a huge role for the animals.

Indeed, that inspired the name “Pasture 42” for their farm. They’re on Road 42 in Guinda, a small, unincorporated community of 250 residents, just west of Cache Creek and the 1,000-foothigh China Peak.

And back in Woodland there’s Mullar Ranch, established in

1967 by an earlier generation. That now operates on another scale — thousands of acres, a few hundred employees — a place where Ken can borrow the odd piece of machinery now and again or share knowhow. Mullar Ranch has been honored by UC Davis and other agricultural programs for their very modern, sustainable farming practices. It seems to run in the bloodline. End of the day, all of this can be summarized for me by an egg in the palm of the hand. Crack open a very fresh egg, from a properly raised chicken. You’ll discover an orange yolk, not the yellow yolks that are so common. Prepare one of each for breakfast, sunny side up, and see the difference.