BY: SEBASTIAN MOLLOY
Jaime Medina’s family farm brings their berries from their farm in Watsonville to SFSU’s campus every Thursday. The berries 81-mile journey begins at 4 a.m., and arrive unharmed in time for SFSU’s farmers market.
The market has an official 10 a.m. opening time, but many stalls are set up and ready to sell prior to that time.
“We try to get there as early as possible,” said Jaime, “the berries are sweetest and freshest in the morning.”
At just 30 acres Medina farms is a small farm growing an assortment of seasonal berries. A family owned farm for 4 generations, it recently earned its organic certification from Santa Cruz Counties office; a process which requires the land be free from all substances listed on the National List for a minimum of 3 years prior to the organic harvest.
“We’ve been working towards this for I believe almost 7 years now,” said Jaime Medina, 25, the fourth-generation farmer.
The family takes great pride and joy in farming, a notion that when expressed almost resembles a romantic relationship with the land. All actions are carefully planned out and calculated to afford their land enough respect so it will recover in time for the next cycle.
Throughout the process large amount of respect and love can be witnessed between everyone working the farm, old, new, young or old — and at the end everyone’s invited to commemorate their work together.
“At the end of the week we all come together for a big family dinner,” said Jaime.
