How the organic produce at farmers markets travels from farm to market is a story of people who are passionate about what they do and have a deep connection to the land on which they toil.

On a recent Sunday morning, it took just ten customers to fill the Smith Farms booth at the Long Beach Southeast Farmers Market at the Alamitos Bay Marina. Purchases were made amidst long plastic tables piled high with fresh produce.

Smith Farms sells at three Long Beach markets every week: Bixby Knolls on Thursdays, downtown on Fridays, and the Alamitos Marina on Sundays. They have been a fixture in Long Beach since 1980, when they were an original vendor at the very first Harbor Area Farmers Market in the downtown area.

Smith Farms grows its produce twenty miles south and, one early evening, McKay Smith could be found walking through his Irvine farm – a peaceful, orderly eight acres of organic farming. His four farms total twenty acres and include three smaller farms in Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach. In 1996, Smith became Orange County’s first organic farmer, growing certified crops on his Irvine land, a practice that also now includes one of his Fountain Valley farms.

Smith Farms currently grows more than 20 different kinds of organic produce including asparagus, cilantro, tomatoes, cauliflower, green beans, lettuce (green leaf, red leaf, romaine, and iceberg), onions (yellow, red, and white), and a huge field of strawberries.

Smith employs a staff of 26 people, many of whom have been with him for years. There are foremen at each farm, and teams of sales people cover 20 weekly farmers markets from Costa Mesa to Santa Monica. Produce for all Long Beach markets are picked that morning, except for the Alamitos Marina market, where produce is picked the day before, as most employees have Sundays off.

Alamitos Marina is Smith’s most profitable market, with sweet basil and heirloom tomatoes being two of the best sellers there. His mother, Paula, can be found at their booth most Sundays. “It’s a great market and the largest for us,” says Smith. “We’ve been selling there since it opened.”

Smith didn’t always grow organically. His grandfather and father were farmers, and he went to work with his dad as a boy. “My father was a big pesticides guy like everyone in the 1960s,” he says. “And I did that all throughout the 1980s.” But as more and more Farmers Market customers began asking about organic produce, Smith started exploring an alternate way of farming.

Now, pretty green hedges, or habitats, that consist of helpful plants such as daikon radish, crimson clover, and anise, line the perimeter of his Irvine farm. Habitats bloom and reseed, attracting ladybugs and other beneficial insects that eat aphids, and are a useful tool for organic farmers so they don’t need to use much spray.

When Smith does spray, he uses botanical sprays, including one made from chrysanthemum flowers. These products are certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute, the not-for-profit organization that determines which products are acceptable for use in organic farming.

Smith speaks enthusiastically, describing several organic farming techniques that include weeding by hand to avoid the use of herbicides and feeding compost ‘tea’, or water passed through a compost pile, into irrigation drip lines as a soil additive to prevent soil-borne disease. Another organic practice Smith employs is green cover cropping.

Before he grows his strawberries, Smith will first plant a ‘cover crop’ of legumes on the empty field. After harvesting the beans, the green cover is tilled into the soil, enriching the ground with nitrogen. He also spreads organic compost (14 tons of it alone on the Irvine strawberry field) and mixes in seabird guano for fertilizer before organic seedlings are planted by hand.

Smith and his foremen also constantly walk the strawberry fields. They use small magnifying lenses to look for two-spotted mites, the tiny enemy of strawberry plants that parachute in with the Santa Ana winds, living on the underside of leaves and drying out plants.

“In the 1980s when I didn’t know the difference, I used to spray strawberry plants all the time,” he says. “Now this is how crazy my operation is. I bring in predator mites, beneficial bugs who combat problems, and all they eat are two-spotted mites. I literally buy hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them.”

Smith also uses less entomological, lo-fi methods. Water dishes and bird seed on overturned garbage can lids are scattered around the grounds as a tempting alternative to birds who might peck the strawberries.

These organic techniques, including rotating crops on a regular basis, maintain a high level of organic matter in the soil. “There’s a lot of life in your soil,” Smith explains. “There are all kinds of beneficial bacteria, and that’s the difference in organic farming. It produces a much healthier plant.”

“It’s an eco-balance out here and organic farmers are stewards of their land,” he continues. “You’re looking and watching on a daily basis. It’s very important to keep everything on an even keel.”

But organic farming is more than simply growing produce. There’s the expense and the paperwork as well. Smith pays to have his soil tested twice a year by an independent company that certifies the infrastructure of organic farms. In addition, there is the cost of natural fertilizer, which is more expensive than its synthetic counterpart, not to mention the cost of importing thousands of helpful bugs.

Smith is also required to keep a paper trail that records the integrity of his produce. “There’s paper on every box that goes out of here,” he says. “I have to document everything, if my guys are out here weeding today or planting. There’s a lot of tracking and lot of bookwork.”

So why then, does Smith continue to farm organically and to even consider one day converting his other two farms to being certified organic?

“Farming is a gratifying profession – it’s seeing something going from seed to a beautiful product, and in organics, it’s challenging to get a beautiful product,” he laughs. “Organics don’t look as pretty as conventional stuff but the flavor is wonderful. Most of the time, it has a more strong, robust flavor.”

Smith first discovered organic farming at the Farmers Markets and customers are still his best information source. “I listen to people, what they’re interested in, and try to grow better-tasting varieties than what they can get in stores,” he says of new produce that includes a few varieties of strawberries and sweet cherry tomatoes.

“People at the Farmers Markets don’t realize how much work goes into organic farming versus conventional farming,” says Smith. “It’s so much different.”

It’s a fascinating, healthy difference, once you know the story. And, in the end, there’s an abundance of good food that’s better for the planet.