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Bulletin, Progressive, Record, Reporter Wednesday, July 6, 2011 1B
00GI,DNAL
EDITORIAL AND OPINION * UPCOMING EVENTS
FARM DIVERSIFICATION
Green Gulch Ranch balances multiple enterprises
Diana Jorgenson
Staff Writer
djorgenson@plumasnews.com
Creating and restoring
wildlife habitat is a passion
for Byrd and J.P. Harrison of
Green Gulch Ranch, just
outside of Vinton in Sierra
Valley.
"At any time of the year,
you can see lots of deer, lots
of geese, lots ....... :,<.::;;:':.
of ' °ii, ' : ! ,., 71
wildlife,
period.
To me, it is a sign that
means: Whatever it is that
you are doing
to the land,
you're doing
right," Byrd
averred.
For the Har-
risons, diversi-
fying ranch in-
come has been the means of
pursuing their passion for
creating a mecca for local
wildlife on their lands.
For 25 years, Green Gulch
Ranch raised purebred
Herefords at what had been
the historic Laffercinni
Ranch, with its hundred-
year-old barns and vintage
farmhouse. The cattle ranch
started on the heels of the
previous Swiss dairy farmers
who sold milk and cheese to
the citizens of Virginia City.
Many Sierra Valley ranches
made the switch to cattle
when dairy regulations
became more stringent.
Quite incidentally, 20 years
ago the Harrisons began a
small hunt club with a few
friends and their dogs. And
20 years ago, they put in their
first wildlife pond.
Today, only a fraction of
those cattle numbers graze at
Green' Gulch Ranch and only
a few of those cattle belong
to the Harrisons. Today, the
private hunting club has
grown to 100 members who
each pay an annual fee to
hunt pheasant and chukar at
Green Gulch Ranch. This
switch in balance developed,
quite naturally, from their
passion for wildlife habitat
work.
Chukar and pheasants are the game luring
hunt club members to Green Gulch Ranch from Septem-
ber through March. Because the birds are non-native, the
Department of Fish and Game permits a longer season.
The timing allows the Harrisons and their crew to
concentrate on "making hay while the sun shines."
And the wildlife pond? It re-
mains the most successful
habitat work they've done,
attracting 400 geese on a
given day, or on another day,
what is probably the largest
congregating deer herd in
Plumas County.
Byrd told a group of farmers,
ranchers and gardeners partic-
ipating in a Ranch Diversifica-
tion Tour, "You diversify to
1) increase revenue flow;
2) utilize resources you
already have at hand; and
3) take a passion that you
have and turn that passion
into a business."
In scaling down from the
cattle business, Green Gulch
took parts of that ranching
experience and made them
individual enterprises. The
Harrisons continue to graze
60 head of cattle on the land
but they lease that land to a
neighboring rancher and few
of the cattle are theirs; they
have grassland for four times
those numbers, but the
emphasis on wildlife habitat
means that they prefer to
move the cattle from meadow
to meadow each year, rather
than fully grazing to its
potential.
They also have a 200-head
feedlot for custom
feeding cattle and
they farm 1,500
acres. More
than 1,000
acres of the
4,000-acre ranch is
planted in high-gi'ade
alfalfa, primarily for the
Sacramento Valley dairy
market. They produce several
hundred tons of
dry land grains.
The Har-
risons' son, Zac,
reported that their
biggest emerging
market is small
bale hay for back-
yard horse owners. They are
also selling to Feather River
College and other small
equestrian centers.
"It means we're getting
back into grass hay, which
does really well in this
valley," he said.
Increasing income sources
through diversity means that
you don't shrink from trying
new things. "You have to be
flexible. You may try four
things and only one of them
takes off," Zac told the group.
With that in mind, his wife,
Kerstin, is trying out a pump-
kin patch that she hopes will
bring visitors to enjoy Green
Gulch Ranch this coming fall.
Because of the long matura-
tion period for pumpkins, she
is trying several varieties.
But the biggest change to
ranch income came about
through the growth of the
hunt club. Byrd credits a
fellow hunt club owner
and longtime friend with
encouraging him to make the
Participants in a recent Ranch Diversification Tour gathered around a 100-year-old barn on the
Green Gulch Ranch. Byrd and J.P. Harrison ran a cattle ranch, much like their Sierra Valley ranch-
ing neighbors, for 25 years before diversifying into leased grazing, hay and grass production,
and a hunt club operation. Photos
leap in scale required to turn
a hobby into an income-
producing business.
The only infrastructure
investment was to build shel-
ters for the 2,000 pheasants
and 2,000 chukars that they
procured from bird suppliers
in the course of a year.
On the plus side, the hunt
club turned out to be the best
management of their full-
time crew of four. The crew
was provided with full
employment after haying
season ended.
Byrd credited those four
with much of the ranch's
success: "They are the best
crew that we've ever had."
It's hard to market such a
varied list of enterprises, but
by Diana Jorgenson
Zac credits word-of-mouth
as still the best advertising,
especially when the markets
are very specific and very
small.
Byrd added that they are
also selective in who they
want to hunt their lands, so
mass-market advertising is
not appropriate. When they
wanted to expand the hunt
club, they simply asked their
membership to each bring in
a friend they recommended.
The hunt club has also
spawned new enterprises.
J.P. used to shoot trap com-
petitively, so they built a
practice facility. Then they
expanded and added skeet.
Today, Green Gulch Ranch
hosts groups of 30 - 40 people
in casino-sponsored events
featuring a day of shooting
and a good meal.
But the Harrisons of Green
Gulch Ranch don't lose sight
of their passion for wildlife
habitat work.
"High numbers means
high dollars and high dollars
supposedly means a better life,
but that's not the way I see it,"
Byrd told the group of listeners.
He has entered wildlife
habitat into the equation, so
each acre, each enterprise
activity is evaluated as to its
best long-term usage. They
seem to have found the bal-
ance that works best for
them: a combination of
farming and agritourism that
sustains local wildlife.
Green Gulch Ranch is a treasure trove of unexpected sights, like this historic Sierra Valley fire
engine. You will also see peacocks (just because) and llamas (for predator control), chukar and
pheasants, historic barns and old equipment, and, at the center, a farm house dating from 1926,
surrounded by shade trees and a wide expanse of inviting lawn.
Byrd Harrison addresses an interested group of farmers and prospective ranchers and offers his
experiences in diversification. Harrison described the pond behind him as "the most successful
habitat work we've done." Completed 20 years ago, it attracts as many as 400 migrating geese
on a given day and is a haven for indigenous fowl and ranch wildlife. A current grant will allow
the ranch to add a pond or two each year for the next couple of years.
A question of scale: decidil00,S how small is big enough
Diana Jorgenson
Staff Writer
dj°rgens°n@plumasnews'c°m
All three of the ranchers and farmers featured in a recent
Ranch Diversification Tour offered visitors the same advice
about how to pick an enterprise: do what you love to do.
"Passion is what gets you through a bad day," said Zac
Harrison of Green Gulch Ranch. And there will be bad days.
Make no mistake. Days when the tractor won't start...
Or, as his father, Byrd Harrison, described, the day the well
went dry and pumped miles of irrigation line full of sand.
Even that short sentence is enough to make one shudder.
But once you pick your passion and have defined your
enterprise, you'll need to secure the necessary permits
and research what is required for selling to the market you
envision for your product or service.
Write a business plan for each enterprise. Do the numbers.
That will help you decide whether you can be successful.
But there is another thing all three farmers (those of
Harvey Ranch, Sierra Valley Farms and Green Gulch Ranch)
agreed upon: It will take more time, more work and more
money than you figure. Twice as much, said Byrd Harrison.
Passion will get you through the bureaucratic maze and
passion will keep you going through the tough spots and help
you survive your mistakes.
Although Dan Macon agrees with the principle of
starting small and keeping your mistakes small, he told tour
attendees, "At some point, you have to be big enough to be
a business. That's the struggle those of us who want to be
small-scale farmers deal with on a daily basis."
It's a question of scale, said Macon of Flying Mule Farm:
"How small is big enough?"
Macon, of Sierra Collaborative Regional Alliance
for Farmer Training (Sierra CRAFT), was one of the hosts of
the Ranch Diversification Tour sponsored jointly with
the Western Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Program, the University of California Cooperative
Extension and Plumas Rural Services.
He spoke to a group of farmers, gardeners and would-be
farmers and ranchers and said, "The thing to look at in terms
of scale is to look at the numbers, figuring out what your
profit and salary goals are and then figuring out what size of
operation you need to meet these goals."
He offered his own experience as a sheep farmer. "The
romantic notion of making a living from 100 ewes or an acre
of mixed vegetables, however, quickly runs up against the
realities of scale. Small producers typically have higher unit
costs for purchasing supplies, obtaining processing services,
transporting goods and other inputs."
Marketing directly to customers, thereby offering a fresher,
more nutritious product along the way, frequently offsets these.
"As a small farmer, I focus more on feeding my neighbors
and my community than on the oft-repeated focus on 'feeding
the world' espoused by the proponents of industrial scale
agriculture," Macon said.
Even with direct marketing and higher prices per unit, the
small-scale enterprise has to be big enough. "The farm must
operate at a scale that covers its production expenses and its
overhead, and that lJroduces a profit for the farm family.
While this scale varies by the type of operation and by the
farm family's needs and expectations, it is a question that
must be answered correctly for the farm to stay in business."
Macon summed up his discussion on scale: "To be
sustainable, agriculture must address three key elements:
resource conservation and enhancement, social equity and
economic viability. To ignore any of these three issues is
short sighted; to ignore economic viability is lethal. A farm
that fails economically will ultimately fail to conserve
resources and social equity. Ultimately, economic viability
requires farms to operate at a scale that provides for
profitability."
The Harrisons of Green Gulch Ranch are creating an oasis of wildlife habitat outside Vinton in the northern end of Sierra Valley.