North Bay Woman

30 NORTH BAY WOMAN | S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 Smith, 54, and her husband, Craig, make a practice of reading aloud to each other, and as they started Pollan's book, she thought, "This is a good writer. He's funny." When they got deeper into it, though, she realized it was "a fanatical investigation of food." Horrified by what they learned about the production system, the Smiths visited the Marin Civic Center farmer's Market for the first time and talked to farmers who were using healthier, sustain- able practices. They bought vegetables and meat for a couple of meals, but went back to their usual food for the rest of the week. "It took such a long time," says Smith, ob- serving that some block allows us to keep making poor choices, so it took several years for her family to stop eating bad food altogether. "I still wonder how, knowing what we know, why people eat the kind of food they do," she says. She became obsessed with problems in the food production system, and friends started avoiding her. "They thought it was weird," she says, and finally, one charged her with talking about bad food, often over meals at their homes, without offering any solutions. The comments were a revelation. She decided to take on the challenge of sustainable farming, but first, she spent a year doing research. "What caught my attention was Joel Salatin," she says, explaining that Salatin, of Polyface farm in Virginia, has written books on farming skills and agricultural entrepreneurship that are easy to understand. "It's a black hole for people like me," she says, but Salatin tells people how do it, and in 2009, she and her husband bought 300 acres south of Petaluma and started raising chickens, a few cows and some little pigs. Six years later, Tara firma farms is in the black and maintains a firm commitment to sustainable agri- culture. Among its innovations is gleaning to provide feed for the animals. "We get massive amounts of greens from or- ganic producers who can't use it," says Smith, and they also add unused bread, eggs, whey left over from cheese making and fish. "The pigs chow down on that," she says, adding that it's important to make sure they don't eat too much fish before harvest- ing, or it will affect the flavor of the pork. Smith also continues to be an advocate for better food. She says the uSDA is concerned with keeping people from becoming sick, but doesn't look at healthy food, nutrition or the damage production does, although the environment, the health of the animals, the soil and processing are vitally important and need attention too. "We're all part of the life cycle," she says. Educating people to make wise choices is one of Smith's passions, and she welcomes visitors. She'll have kindergarten kids on field trips run to the top of the hill and turn their faces to the sky. They tell her they feel Tara Hill farms is committed to sustainable agriculture, following the philosophy of Tara Smith and her family. Her family feeds its stock with unused bread, eggs and whey left over from making cheese, as well as donated greens from other farmers. They feed their pigs fish, but avoid giving them too much of that before harvesting because it impacts the flavor of the meat. –Photos by Stuart Lirette

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