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Story by Susan Sklar, Interfaith Program Representative, Sidebars by Wells Neal, Sales Director of National Markets
 Wendy Larson has worked as the general manager of Big Tree Organic Farms for over a decade. She owes at least part of her passion for her work to her dad, Glenn Anderson, who was a long-time California almond grower and a pioneer in the field of organic almonds. Back in the 1980s, Glenn was one of two organic almond growers in the San Joaquin Valley — the only place in the U.S. where almonds are grown. He was able to connect with the organic business culture taking place in California at that time, and successfully operated his own 20-acre organic almond farm for many years.
Throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s there was a growing demand for organic nuts and produce, but California farmers lacked marketing channels. In the late 1990s, a group of organic almond growers turned to Wendy’s father for his expertise. Glenn responded by holding regular beer and pizza meetings to announce orders that needed to be filled and to ask who could handle them. Eventually, as the orders grew in number, the work proved to be too much for Glenn, who still ran his own farm. There was a need for the growers to form a co-operative, but no one had the experience to take the lead.
In 1998, when Wendy needed to make a major change in her personal life, she became the group’s paid consultant—a short-term position, she thought. She and her son couldn’t relocate, so she travelled about 700 miles to and from work every couple of weeks. Wendy had a background in retail, restaurant, and real-estate management. Her experience turned out to be invaluable and allowed her to help the group to develop a business plan and then to implement it. Wendy didn’t ask for the same high fee requested by others because of her deep connection to the project. Eventually, when she realized that she might be in it for the long haul, she sold her home and went to live with her father, working off of a Macintosh computer in the corner of the living room.
Between July and October 1998, Big Tree Organic Farms was incorporated, utilizing a $10,000 USDA value added marketing grant which the group received with the assistance of the U.C. Davis Center for Cooperatives. And after six months of demonstrating her skills and leadership, Wendy was hired as the co-op’s first general manager. In her first official marketing role, the co-op flew her out to a product trade show where she walked around and handed out business cards to potential customers.
All of the growers pitched in money for the start-up. It was slow going and the farmers had to make sacrifices. Several farmers who had been excited about the endeavor couldn’t participate in the project due to personal hardships. Just when things were improving, Tri-Valley Growers, an area fruit processing and marketing co-op, went belly up, resulting in the loss of buildings and real estate for growers. As a result of some farmers losing everything, there was a negative attitude toward co-ops which slowed the growth of the co-op’s membership for several years.
Now that it was a co-op, Big Tree Organic Farms evaluated how to serve its members more effectively. With help from the Center for Cooperatives, a relationship with a professional CPA firm specializing in co-operative bookkeeping was started and after that a banking relationship was established.
By acquiring a line of credit from CoBank, Big Tree Organic Farms was able to set a more reliable payment schedule for its members.
Wendy now works with a small staff. Over the last three or so years, she and her staff have concentrated on outreach and marketing. She works hard to make sure that the value goes back to the farmers. The Big Tree Organic Farms co-operative has established itself as a resource for other growers and now has an organic almond database. It has started to do its almond processing in-house—and is working to do this more efficiently. It runs organic almond workshops which help to attract new growers and helps growers to network. There are training sessions on farming techniques, water usage, almond varieties, and orchard management issues.
Big Tree Organic Farms, while successful, is faced with many of the same challenges faced by other co-ops today: How do you thrive? How do you find committed participants? How do you find the best way to get to more customers? The co-op is now an accepted institution in the region with over 20 farmer members whose farms range between 11 and 150 acres.
Equal Exchange’s partnership with Big Tree Organic Farms helps to return the value to the farmers and their families. Although things are looking up for the industry as a whole, almond brokers, traders, and distributors still demand a major piece of the pie. This past year, the farmers’ paychecks were cut by $1.50 per pound even though no one else in the supply chain cut their profits. It seems that a group of brokers reached the conclusion that organic almonds were overpriced and overproduced, and decided that growers should be the ones to cut back.
Regardless, Wendy plans to be the general manager of the co-op “as long as they’ll have me.” She said that it’s a shame that “so many people in the supply chain want to sideline the very folks who produce the food.” Wendy believes that farmers always deserve to have direct representation in the marketplace. She concluded by saying that what makes the relationship with Equal Exchange different and unique is that Equal Exchange “gets it.” She says, “They understand and respect my farmers. I don’t have to worry about them pushing me to compromise my commitment to my growers.”
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Our Co-op 
