Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
they pack and sell fruit from individual growers. Regardless of category, it is extremely
rare - nearly impossible - for fruit grown by a single farmer to reach the supermarket
without being mixed with someone else's. As far as we are concerned, the farmers are
faceless and nameless. So what is the incentive for someone who grows terrific peaches
to invest in the extra work and money that it requires to do this, when his fruit is going
to end up being combined with that of his neighbor, who might not necessarily have the
same standards? There really doesn't seem to be one. This is one of the great dilemmas of
commercial agriculture: there are significant rewards for growing more fruit (in fact, it is
almost required), but there are precious few for growing better fruit.
For a gifted farmer to reap the benefits of his talents and efforts, he is almost forced to go
outside the normal supply chain. The most common escape route is the farmers' market,
which provides a grower with both blessings and curses in roughly equal proportions. If
you want character - both in fruit and in farmers - these markets are certainly the place to
go.
Two of the biggest stars at the Santa Monica farmers' market are the stone fruit growers
Art Lange and Fitz Kelly, small farmers whose orchards are practically next door to each
other just south of Fresno. Bite into one of Lange's Snow Queen white nectarines, and the
flavor is enough to make you gasp. The first impression is of powerful syrupy sweetness.
Then comes a tart tang that gives the sugar some backbone. Overriding everything is a
mix of complex flavors, both floral and fruity, so mouth-filling it seems almost meaty. The
fruit is so ripe that the juices drip down your chin; so ripe that a peach practically peels
itself. Much the same can be said for Kelly's Lady in Red peaches.
These days, when we consider ourselves lucky to get fruit that is simply sweet, it is
easy to forget that something as basic as a peach or a nectarine can actually have the power
to shock. Producing fruit like that is no accident of nature. It takes a gifted farmer, a lot of
hard work and a refusal to compromise. Kelly and Lange have been growing such amaz-
ing fruit for so long that they have come to embody great farming. They remind us that
growing food can be every bit the work of art that cooking it can be. Other growers have
customers; Kelly and Lange have apostles. And here's the thing: Kelly and Lange farm
right in the middle of the stone fruit belt. The big boys are their neighbors, farming the
same type of land, often with many of the same types of trees.
Kelly is a loquacious, good-looking Irishman with an impressive head of wavy silver
hair and a bluff, boyo charm. Picture a younger, healthier Ted Kennedy with a farmer's tan,
perpetually clad in khaki shorts and a faded work shirt. As he bangs through the twenty-
acre main orchard he's owned for more than thirty years in a beat-up four-wheel-drive
