Betting on the Farm: An Heirloom Childhood

It is the peak of harvest season and Kathleen Barsotti, owner of a struggling organic farm, dies of cancer at fifty-one, leaving Thaddeus, the twenty-year-old middle of her four sons, to harvest and sell twenty acres of heirloom tomatoes and cultivate new crops, all in less than three months. Otherwise, the brothers will lose the farm and even worse, their mother's legacy. Meanwhile, they learn the hard way that their mother was the glue holding the family together. Without her, the boys aged sixteen to twenty-six, are asked to take sides within the feuding family while they learn the reality of doing business. The IRS sends threatening letters, organic certification is at risk of being revoked, suppliers and employees expect to be paid and the people who helped Kathy are reluctant to help her boys. The brothers each contribute to the farm's day-to-day survival. Economic pressures, time-sensitive decisions, a historic lack of record keeping, and the sheer physical labor of running a farm drive Thaddeus to a state of misery that causes the skin to sluff off his hands. In the end, the only way to save the farm is to repair the brothers' relationships with one another. By and by, this half-hippy and half-redneck family bumbles into a solution that hearkens back to their wild, independent youth. Interspersed with funny stories about the early days of California's organic farming revolution, this modern-day farm story entertains with its quirky characters and their well-meaning agricultural disasters. Betting on the Farm also provides a window into the important struggle for a sustainable food system, which birthed California's Slow Food movement, its abundance of farmers' markets, and today's organic culture.