Herstory: Women in Organic Agriculture - CCOF

Donna Wallace BAYLES RANCH • HANDLER/PROCESSOR CHAPTER
IN 1865, NEAR THE END OF THE U.S.
Civil War, five Bayliss brothers purchased
land together in Northern California and
began farming “organically”, or just farming
normally as it was back then. The brothers
planted much of their 20,000 acres with
wheat. Responding to the plight of California
farmers losing crops to widespread
flooding, the Lincoln administration began
building levees to control the problem.
During this time, many Chinese immigrants
were coming to America in search
of fortune. They helped build the Transcontinental
Railroad and worked in the
gold mines around Butte County. At this
same time, the government offered some of
the first agricultural subsidies in history to
farmers who would replace wheat with rice.
It was during this transition that the Bayliss
family moved from Glenn to Butte County
and began farming rice.
Fast-forward one hundred years, and we
meet Donna Bayliss, who has run the family
business since 1983. When she took
over the business, it was nearly bankrupt.
Being a mother of a 6-year old son at the
time, she says a motherly instinct to protect
the family business is what drove her
to take on the challenge. She took out the
unproductive walnut orchard and replaced
it with botanicals. Her intuition said that
farming organic botanicals was a new
opportunity for her family, the business,
and the organic industry.
It was Donna’s conviction and determination
that led her to select organic botanicals.
“I wanted to provide an alternative of
pure ingredients for synthetic cosmetic
products,” explains Donna. “I felt it was a
great place to claim organic. When synthetics
can so easily replicate botanicals, it was a
natural place to use the validating process of
certified organic standards to verify real
plants versus man made synthetics.” She
didn’t want to become another farmer polluting
the land with agro-chemicals. So
organic was the way to go; back to the way
the original five Bayliss Brothers farmed.
Donna described a time when she used
lavender oil on an injury to draw out the
blood and heal the bruise. “It was Mother
Nature who healed the bruise,” she says.
“Organic botanicals are more powerful
than any man-made synthetics. We should
honor and respect their strength.” Donna
has also found pleasure in researching and
studying native plants in the area traditionally
used by Native Americans.
In addition to the challenge of rescuing
the family business from bankruptcy, Donna
has faced other challenges, particularly
because she is a woman in farming. “There
are pluses and minuses to being a woman
farmer. Over time women have found some
real opportunities replacing the closed session
board rooms of men. It has given us the
opportunity to think outside the box where
creativity really begins. It gives the opportunity
to be inventive, and rethink old norms.”
While Donna is used to the challenges of
farming, she doesn’t mind change.
Today Donna directs the family business
with a full-time staff under her. Her son, now
grown, has found one of his passions in animal
husbandry and farms some of the ranch.
“I appreciate my CCOF label and the
value of the name ‘California Certified
Organic Farmers’. When consumers who
never “turn the soil” purchase our products,
they are actively participating in helping
sustain the environment and the certified
organic farmer.”
Donna is overall satisfied with the new
National Organic Program (NOP) regulations
for the organic industry. “This is the
kind of standard we need. Organic needs
to be regulated to keep its integrity. It is
imperative that certifiers control abuses
of the word “organic”. The R2823 before
the State of California is an amendment to
the California Organic Foods Act of 1990.
We are proud to be a part of the efforts to
ensure that this amendment will monitor
and maintain the integrity of the word
organic in all non-food products. But how
can we regulate products coming from a
foreign country? If there is contamination,
we need to know it.”
Donna is all in favor of country of origin
labeling, and even the idea of state and
county of origin labeling. “It would be a
great marketing coup for stores to announce
state and county of origin [on food and
products]. It would work well for agriculture
and for consumers. It would give
local growers and consumers pride in their
products and their regions.”
But for now, Donna says, financial survival
for farmers is a continual challenge.
And it shouldn’t have to be.
Women, the Garden, Herbs, and Healing~
Exploring the unique relationship women have to growing our food and herbal medicine
July 19-21 Occidental Arts & Ecology Center Occidental, CA
Hands-on course will include elements of gardening, herbal studies, and horticultural therapy.
$350. Contact: Kalanete Baruch Ph: 707-874-1557, ext. 201 e-mail: oaec@oaec.org
Summer 2002 Page 13