New West Feature

Utah Organic Farmer Perseveres in the Desert

By Nathan Rice, 11-17-10

	"I don't want to make any enemies," Randy Ramsley explained. "It has been really hard having my life threatened, people flipping me the bird, honking horns at me, giving me the moon and harassing me in the auto parts store. All those things are no fun. But if I had to do it again, I would have to do it again because I have to sit with myself at night." Photo by Nathan Rice.

With two inches of snow on the desert at the end of a long growing season, Randy Ramsley is ready for a break.

“Harvest is over,” Ramsley said with a sense of relief. “Mostly I’m just resting from a brutal season.”

After losing his help on Mesa Farm in Caineville, Utah, this summer, the organic small farmer had to do it alone: wrangling 50 goats, milking 15 of them, baking every day, making cheese every other day, running the road-side store, delivering produce to buyers and growing the garden.

“Working 14, 16 hours a day seven days a week taught me a lot about myself, so I have to bless the experience,” Ramsley said. “I wouldn’t want to do it again.”

Here on Mesa Farm, surrounded by desolation, Randy Ramsley makes the desert bloom. Under the shadow of Luna Mesa, he produces everything from lettuce to peaches to goat cheese - all organically and without chemicals. A growing family of 50-some goats grazes the weeds in his fields and makes fertilizer for the one-acre vegetable garden, milk for cheese, and meat for the table.

“That’s sustainability,” said Ramsley. After 15 years of working soil most people would consider sterile, his vision of abundance without harming the land is almost complete. 

Ramsley’s purist agrarian philosophy hasn’t made life easy for him, though. As if the toil of running a small farm weren’t enough, recent changes in Utah law pass more costs on to already-struggling organic farmers. Beyond the farm, his efforts to protect the nearby desert from off-road vehicles have caused friction in the small community. But comfort has never been Ramsley’s goal. 

“I’ve got to find as much truth as I can about this life and live it,” he said on a walk around the farm this spring, a blue ballcap covering his mop of sun-bleached blond hair. Faded blue jeans and suspenders matched his compact build, reminiscent of a wrestler.

Ramsley’s version of the truth turns out to be pretty simple. Growing up on a South Dakota farm instilled a strong sense of community and a nurturing ethic towards the land.

“We believe that it is possible for farming to be returned to the people,” he wrote on his Mesa Farm Market website, “that society’s redemption depends on a new set of values that recognize the importance of sustainability and the family farm.”

ORGANIC, BUT NOT CERTIFIED

Despite Ramsley’s passion for organic farming, Mesa Farm was not certified organic this year for the first time since 1994. Last year, the state of Utah cut funding to its organic certification program and passed those costs on to small farmers, about $800 per year for Mesa Farm. Ramsley will keep growing organically but the problems of the organic brand go beyond cost, he said .

“Organic certification has allowed large corporations to break into and take advantage of small agriculture,” he said. “They own the word ‘organic’ now.”

This summer, state of Utah representatives showed up at Mesa Farm to take back Ramsley’s outdated organic certificate for lack of payment. But Ramsley had already thrown the piece of paper away.

“The whole machine takes us away from this,” Ramsley said, “which is really where we need to be.” Walking through his fruit orchard this spring, he said buying food locally from trusted, small, organic farmers is more important than the government stamp of approval.

Ramsley plucked a pink blossom from a nectarine tree and explained how the fruit develops from the flower and how the changing climate is impacting fruit yields.

“We are losing this knowledge,” he said. “The old boys are going away. All the family farmers are gone.”

CLOSE TO THE LAND

The numbers paint a stark picture of struggling small farmers in America. Between 1999 and 2006, the US lost over 98,000 farms and 23 million acres of farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Ramsley laments the switch from an agricultural society to a culture based on consumption that, he said, brings big impacts to the natural world. He sees consequences beyond the physical environment.

“As we become detached from the land, we become detached from our heart and our soul,” he said. “The more comfortable we make ourselves the more uncomfortable we become. And we can never be happy when we are constantly seeking physical comfort. It’s impossible.

“You have to find satisfaction in what you are doing,” he continued. “That’s what the old farmers used to do. What sustainable agriculture also offers the community is a break. It’s a return.”

Mesa Farm was Ramsley’s return to living simply and close to the land. After years of working construction in San Diego, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, he stumbled upon Caineville and it spoke to him.

“I just became (enamoured) with the place,” he explained. “I’m not sure if I chose Caineville or if Caineville chose me.” In 1998, he and his wife Debra made the move from the city to the desert.

A FIGHT FOR THE LAND

That deep-seeded sense of place led Ramsley to work for the land beyond his own 40 acres. In the face of off-road vehicle damage around nearby scenic icon Factory Butte, he spearheaded a campaign to protect the area - and really irked his neighbors in the process.

“If you are an environmentalist [around here], its like you are aligned with the devil,” he said. “It’s almost as though protecting the biosphere is counter to the culture.”

Ramsley was concerned about impacts to the scenery, pollution in his water supply and the federally threatened and endangered cactus species that were being trampled by tire treads. As a result of his efforts, and with the help of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Bureau of Land Management closed 186,000 acres to ORV use around Factory Butte in 2006. Over 220 miles of trails and 2,600 acres remain open for ORVs.

“I don’t want to make any enemies,” Ramsley explained. “It has been really hard having my life threatened, people flipping me the bird, honking horns at me, giving me the moon and harassing me in the auto parts store. All those things are no fun. But if I had to do it again, I would have to do it again because I have to sit with myself at night.”

Down the highway in Hanksville, opposition to protecting Factory Butte is plain to see. A gas station sells t-shirts with a cactus shaped like a middle finger and the caption “Ride Factory Butte.” Gas station owner Duke Alvey disagrees with the closure and said business has decreased a result.

Back on the farm, Ramsley sees the issue from a global perspective. “Look at the species that are just going down. That’s not good. That’s really my environmentalism. ... We have to live in harmony on this biosphere if humanity is going to evolve. Because without the biosphere, we are goners.”

‘KEEP THIS THING GOING’

At age 59, Ramsley shows the years spent working the land under the desert sun. His face is weatherworn with creased patterns reminiscent of the parched desert that surrounds the farm.

“I realize now that I’ve been here long enough that the land and I are connected, are the same,” he explained, falling into another story over a cup of coffee at the roadside Mesa Farm Market where he serves salads, bread, goat cheese, and coffee. He also supplies produce to five local restaurants and the local farmer’s market in nearby Torrey.

“One night,” Ramsley continued, “I was walking around checking on stuff and I realized that I knew the land by the way it rolled, the way it felt ... it’s like I’m rooted to it. It’s something that is really necessary for spirit, for me to know that feeling: Here I am. This is what I am.”

While he daydreams about retirement, it still seems far off. His two sons, both in their 30s, don’t seem interested in becoming farmers, he said. But his energy and passion for his work show no sign of waning.

“I hope that someone will take my place to keep this thing going and let me sit on the porch,” he said, smiling. “Then maybe one day I’ll wander off across the river and out into the Blue Hills and drop over dead and have the crows carry me away.” He laughed. “That’s my future.”

In the meantime, Ramsley is preparing for the coming winter, planting cover crops in the goat pasture, milking goats, breeding the next goat generation.

“End of January, the greenhouse fires up,” he said. “That’s not too far away. But I don’t like to think about that yet. ... I always look forward to winter.”

Looking back on the hard season, Ramsley seems satisfied and stubbornly optimistic despite the adversity.

“It was a good year,” he said. “Life is about more than just a dollar profit, so I had a really profitable season. Everything’s getting better.”

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