“Hop in,” Kelly O’Neil said to Mustang News, pulling up the Crops Unit gravel road in a no-door utility terrain vehicle.
Down the road, past rows of olive trees and greenhouses, the Cal Poly Organic Farm emerges against a Steinbeckian landscape of native foliage and Bishop peak, stark against a bright blue sky.
But for O’Neil, the plant sciences operational manager, his day had started long before this, preparing for the arrival of students in the organic production enterprise.
“The amount of student involvement on farms here is second to none,” O’Neil said.
This is where things get hands-on for the Grimm Family Center for Organic Production and Research, which is committed to providing industry growers with the research they need to improve their farming practices, both in efficiency and environmentally.
The added bonus – students get to practice real farming; from weeding, to planting, to driving a tractor, students need only make a short walk from Cal Poly’s main campus to get to the farm.
O’Neil is a key part of the Grimm Family Center. Describing Center director Matthew Grieshop as his “mentor,” O’Neil is responsible for overseeing the field-based research and implementing projects set by Grieshop into the work being done at the farm.
“[Grieshop has] brought an insane amount of energy and thoughtfulness and vision to the organic farm,” O’Neil said.
In 2020, Grimmway Farms – “the world’s largest producer of carrots,” according to a Cal Poly news release – donated $5 million to the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES). Their intended goal was to allocate the money to creating a center on campus dedicated to applied research in organic production.
“The future of this industry depends solely on the ability to prepare, educate and excite the next generation of growers in organic production,” President of Grimmway Farms and Cal-Organic Jeff Huckaby said in the release.
Almost four years later, Cal Poly is making major strides on that promise. Under the guidance of Grieshop, the center has established multiple lines of research, all of which are guided by real industry needs.
“I mean, that’s why a big farming family gave Cal Poly a bunch of money to do this kind of work, because they recognized it wasn’t getting done,” Grieshop said.
Hired at Cal Poly in 2021 and beginning his role at the Grimm Center in 2022, Grieshop set to work creating a team.
“We’ve recruited staff, remodeled the lab and then gotten these various research programs off the ground, as well as the education and outreach programs,” he said.
The Center’s organization includes a full time director rehired annually, center faculty, center staff, graduate students, affiliated undergraduate students and the advisory board. Funding for the center comes from the initial Grimmway Farms donation, in addition to $164,785 from donors.
The Grimmway donation was split into $4 million for operating expenses and $1 million for the soil lab remodel, which will be unveiled at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday. The new soil lab, located in Agricultural Sciences (Bldg 11) Rm. 103, was sparked by the need to keep samples clean and separate.
“The old lab was pretty rundown,” Grieshop said. “It was just a freaking mess. Because I mean, soil is dirt, you know, if you start saving soil and grinding it, it just gets everywhere.”
The eight-acre organic farm provides students enrolled in certain plant science courses hands-on experience with organic production practices. To maintain an organic certification set by the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a third party company audits the farm each year, according to O’Neil.
For the Grimm Family Center, this land catapults their research into tangible methodology.
Research at the center ranges from testing soil fertility to looking at alternative pest management for organics.
“That’s important because growers need resources where they can just go and say, ‘Okay, well, I’m having problems with flea beetles and aphids and Diamondback moths, what if I need to use an organic insecticide? What products will work against those pests?’” Grieshop said.
One of the Center’s ongoing research areas is a large systems trial to test the efficacy rates of the organic fertilizer. About two and a half acres of the organic farm is dedicated to the trial, according to Grieshop.
He also hopes to get funding for another five years, in order to report the center’s findings to their private partners.
“So they can think about, you know, how they might want to implement this type of system in their operation,” Grieshop said.
For growers who don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to experimental trials, the organic farm is able to provide useful results without worrying about fluctuations in crop yield. According to Grieshop, the large systems trial is working in tandem with Braga Fresh, an organic grower based in the Salinas Valley.
The experiment will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tractor fuel and reduce soil tillage – which damages soil health – through the introduction of cover crops.
“What that’s going to allow is the development of more organic matter in the soil, better soil structure, better soil biology,” Grieshop said.
But at the end of the day, according to Grieshop, the center is about giving students “Learn By Doing” opportunities.
On the afternoon that Mustang News visited the organic farm, students from plant science professor Ashraf Tubeileh’s organic enterprise class were planting rows of celery.
According to Tubeileh, the key difference between conventional and organic farming is that organic farmers cannot use synthetic compounds.
“This applies to fertilizers, pesticides, processing, ingredients and so forth,” Tubeileh said. “So it has to be only natural, or like things that were not processed synthetically or manufactured synthetic.”
Students in the enterprise class were responsible for weeding, planting the baby celery, and adding mulch. Tubeileh said he enjoys seeing students learn how much effort is put into organic farming, adding that often farm workers lack humane living and working conditions.
Environmental management and protection sophomore Spencer Zink said his favorite part of having class at the organic farm is learning the ropes of organic production, while also understanding that organics are “Better for your body, better for the earth.”
“With this class just kind of being outside is like, I think it really embodies like the Learn by Doing kind of principle,” Zink said. “Yeah, just organic farming I think is really cool. I think it’s like the future of what we need [to] produce.”
According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, the average age of U.S. farm producers is 58. Grieshop said this is a concern for the agricultural industry.
“The other challenge is really, how do we recruit more young people into agriculture?” Grieshop said. “And in my case, specifically organic agriculture. Like how do we do that? Because the population that actually grows our food is so small in this country.”