Five years ago I heard about an innovative farmer, Jay Ruskey, who was growing coffee beans on his organic farm, Good Land Organics, in the foothills overlooking Santa Barbara, California. Ruskey started his farm in 1992 and over the years has become well-known for growing top-quality fruit, including rare and exotic varieties.
The innovative farmer worked for years on plant research trials and the cultivation of rare and exotic tropical fruits with University of California Cooperative Extension researchers. In 2002, Mark Gaskel, a University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor who had experience working in agriculture in Central America, gave him 40 coffee plants from Costa Rican seeds because Ruskey believed, based on the types of rare and exotic tropical fruits he was already growing, that coffee too could be grown and thrive in coastal Southern California.
After a decade of research and experimentation, Ruskey and the team he created under the FRINJ Coffee banner, acquired the knowledge, expertise and equipment to not only successfully grow coffee on his coastal Southern California farm but also to process it and make high-quality coffee.
FRINJ Coffee (Ruskey came up with the name FRINJ some years ago and defines it as being on the cutting edge but still connected to the mainstream; think fringe spelled uniquely) has created a farm-to-cup coffee business, controlling the entire process from field to finished product.
Most coffee is grown in what’s called the “coffee belt,” in countries between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Therefore, the conventional wisdom historically has always been that coffee can’t be grown in California because it’s too far from the equator. But Ruskey and a growing number of other farmers and entrepreneurs have turned this conventional coffee-cultivation wisdom on its head.
Although still in its infancy, the Grown-in-California coffee industry is growing rapidly. Case in point: California’s first coffee harvest was about 5-6 years ago and there were only a handful of coffee farms. Fast- forward to 2022 and the number of farms growing coffee in California has increased by a whopping 80%. Today, there are 75-100 farms producing coffee in the Golden State, with more on the way.
FRINJ, for example, supports more than 65 farmers who are growing coffee in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Diego counties, and it’s adding more growers to its rapidly-growing list. These coastal regions are where coffee grows best in California.
Most farmers grow coffee alongside avocado and citrus trees, particularly lemons, which allows the trees to share nutrients and is good for soil health. Many California coffee farmers are also using organic and regenerative growing methods to produce their coffee crops.
Santa Barbara-based Hobson Family Farm, which for most of its 165-year history has been a commodity producer of avocados, lemons and wine grapes, decided some years ago to add coffee to its crop-mix as a way to diversify into a potentially more profitable specialty crop. Hobson grows the coffee trees alongside its avocados and lemons. It’s currently the largest coffee farm in California, with nearly 20,000 coffee trees.
Most coffee produced in California is currently being sold directly to consumers and in some specialty grocery stores. It’s been selling well and fetches a price premium over other coffees because of its locally-produced pedigree and unique characteristics. Farmers growing for FRINJ Coffee, for example, earn nearly half the coffee’s sales value, which is far more than coffee growers in traditional coffee-growing regions earn for their crops.
The opportunity to grow the California coffee industry is real. Key to doing so is vertical integration like FRINJ Coffee is doing, as well as the creation of Grown-in-California coffee brands and getting widespread support from retailers.
Most food and beverage products are still bought in physical stores, and like was the case in the 1990s when retailers started offering premium coffee brands in abundance in their stores, getting them to devote shelf space to California-Grown coffee will create major demand for new and existing coffee farmers in the state, as well as making consumers aware that it exists.
A valuable step that will significantly help to grow coffee farming and the coffee industry in California is the establishment and expansion of the UC Davis Coffee Center. The multidisciplinary facility is the world’s first research center devoted to coffee. In May, the University awarded a $4.5 million contract to a construction firm to expand the size of and turn the existing 6,000 square-foot facility into a state of the art building designed to allow for research and other projects and programs focusing on every aspect of coffee.
If UC Davis can help do for coffee in California what it’s done for agriculture in general, including the California wine industry, we should expect to see real growth in coffee farming in the coming years.
Key to the huge success of California agriculture, along with its near-perfect climate and good soil, is innovation. Innovative farmers, entrepreneurs, visionaries and centers of research and innovation, like the University of California, have been the secret sauce in California’s becoming the leading agricultural state in the U.S. and the preeminent food and farm region in the world.
The worst drought in 1,200 years is posing the greatest challenge to farmers and California agriculture in recent history. Along with the drought, wildfires, increasing labor costs and shortages, and fast-rising input costs (fertilizer, transportation, etc.) are adding to this challenge.
Challenges always offer opportunity though. Through innovation, including discovering and commercializing new crops like coffee, agave (see the related story in this issue) and others not even thought of today, California can remain the preeminent place for agriculture, both here at home and globally. Now is the best time for the State of California, as well as the private sector, to invest big in agricultural innovation.
My Job Depends on Ag Magazine columnist and contributing editor Victor Martino is an agri-food industry consultant, entrepreneur and writer. One of his passions and current projects is working with farmers who want to sell directly to consumers or develop their own branded food products. Contact: victormartino415@gmail.com.
