Year-round farming operations

Four years ago, Yerington farmer David Peri, owner of Peri & Sons Farms, rented some ground in California’s agriculture-rich Imperial Valley in order to have a year-round spring mix lettuce farming operation.

To that end, Peri purchased 240 acres in the Imperial Valley earlier this year, but that modest purchase proved to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Peri & Sons in late September completed purchase of the Starr Ranch, a sprawling 2,411-acre property spread over three parcels at Holtville, Calif. Peri said when he first heard the ranch was going up for sale, he inquired about buying a single parcel but wound up taking down the whole ranch.

“It’s rare to see an acreage piece that large sold in the Imperial Valley,” Peri said. “Ground stays family-owned generation after generation down there, and most owners just keep it and rent it out as landlords. When it came up, I thought it was a pretty big nut, but boy it sure would work well for us.

“This is the best soil in all the Imperial Valley for anything you want to grow,” he added.

Prudential Agricultural Investments, the ag arm of Prudential Financial, helped Peri & Sons finance the purchase. The acquisition better positions Peri & Sons for expanded year-round farming operations, Peri said.

Peri & Sons farms 15,000 acres in the Mason Valley in Lyon County. In 2007, Peri & Sons started farming 1,800 acres of onions and a few hundred acres of broccoli and cauliflower in the fall in the Firebaugh/Mendota area of California’s Central Valley. Planting operations in the western Fresno County region begin in mid-October, with first harvest starting around the May 20 and running through mid-August, Peri said.

In 2008, Peri & Sons started farming onions in the Imperial Valley, where the harvest begins a month sooner than in the Central Valley. The growing season in Northern Nevada, meanwhile, starts with planting in mid-March, and harvest normally finishes about the 20th of October before the winter cold sets in.

“That takes us from mid-April to mid-August, and here in Yerington, we harvest mid-August to mid-April since onions come out of storage until then,” Peri said. “It puts us in onions 365 days a year.

“I wanted them all grown in the U.S. – I did not want to be off U.S. soil,” he added. “I believe that if you grow it in America, it should be produced in America and sold in America. We sell onions globally, but mostly in America so people can buy sustainably grown produce and know where it came from.”

Peri & Sons added spring mix — spinach, and wide varieties of lettuces — in the Imperial Valley in order to have those crops year-round as well. In addition to onions, Peri & Sons farms spring mix, as well as broccoli, cauliflower and celery, in Yerington.

“Now we have what we need for our spring mix program, as well as onions, and we also are rotating with carrots,” Peri said. “I’ll be doing spring mix, spinach, onions and carrots, which gives me a bunch more rotation. In the Imperial Valley, it makes a lot more sense to own ground. This year the stars kind of lined up where we went from zero to 2,650 acres in six months.”

Farming operations in the Imperial Valley are much different than in Northern Nevada, Peri noted. For starters, the growing season in the Mason Valley ends during the cold winter months. In Imperial County, however, the average temperature during winter months hovers around a balmy 70 degrees. Ever since weather records have been kept for Imperial County, there has been one instance of measurable snowfall back in 1932.

Temperatures in summer months often rise to a sweltering 120 degrees, Peri said. Farm workers there typically start their day at 3 a.m. during the summer, he added, and they wrap up around 10 a.m. to avoid working in the dangerous heat.

Peri & Sons already has key management in place in Southern California, and longtime employee Hugo Brambila will move to the Imperial Valley and work as general farm manager. Peri said he will continue to add additional pieces to the management and operations teams.

“We will have year-round staff and management there, just like we have in the Central Valley – you have to,” he said. “In the vegetable business, farming 1,000 acres of vegetables takes a lot of people. There’s a big staff to manage with a lot of moving parts.

“None of it is easy to manage,” he added. “If you plant 100 acres, it won’t go well if it’s not managed right. Farming 1,800 acres (in the Central Valley) compared to 15,000 acres (in Yerington) may not seem like a lot, but when it’s 1,800 acres of fresh-market onions, it is a 600-employee job all summer long between the harvest growers, tractor drivers, and the workers in the packing shed. It’s a lot to manage for three months.”

Peri & Sons employs about 650 during slower parts of the year, but employment ramps up to roughly 2,500 at peak harvest times, Peri said.

The land at Starr Ranch currently is tied up through an existing lease agreement that goes with the acquisition, Peri said. The land will fall fully under Peri & Sons control in summer of 2025. Peri said that currently about 600 acres of ground at Starr Ranch is certified organic, and over the next three years he will work toward transitioning the entire land package as 100-percent organic for Peri & Son’s spring mix program.

“The acquisition just kind of came along. I wasn’t really looking for a piece this size, but it was very favorable buying it all in one piece. It was discounted compared to buying it in pieces.

“It’s always nice to own land and water where you have 100-percent control of it,” he added.