California Voters Reject Nation's First Farm Ban, Farmers Reflect on the Fight

For Sonoma County farmers, the victory over Measure J is bittersweet. It was a battle they should never have had to fight.

Sonoma County voters have rejected the nation’s first farm ban and the results were not close—early returns show 85% opposed.

After months of being forced to defend their right to exist and continue producing food, farmers in the rural California county are left with mixed emotions. Measure J would have forced 21 animal farms to close, including the sixth-generation Tresch family dairy.

The Tresch family runs 750 cows on 2000 certified organic acres. Theirs was the second dairy in the western U.S. to receive an organic certification. Under Measure J, they would have been classified a "factory farm" and shut down.

“I think there is a communal sense of relief within the farming community,” Lydia Tresch told me. “But these activist groups aren’t going anywhere. They are still considering this a ‘win’ considering all the press they got.”

The groups behind Measure J, including Direct Action Everywhere (DXE) and the Coalition to End Animal Farming, espouse radical goals such as criminalizing meat eating and ending all animal farming by 2040. Based in the Bay Area, farmers in nearby Sonoma County fall right in their crosshairs. Farmers say these activists have trespassed onto their land for years, stealing livestock and wreaking havoc—even implicated in terrorist attacks including barn fires and a devastating avian flu outbreak.

Lydia’s children are the seventh generation on the farm.

I asked if it was difficult to view the failure of Measure J as a win after months of constant harassment.

“We had to put energy into defending our farm when we didn’t do anything in the first place,” Tresch said. “Almost two million dollars went to this campaign to defend farmers. All these farmers work around the clock, many work 16+ hour days. Instead of spending any free time they had with their families, they changed out of their work clothes and showed up at city council meetings, debates, interviews, all of it, and then went back home and straight back to work.”

A source with knowledge claims the groups rented multiple houses in the town of Petaluma in order to house protestors. This source also raised questions about the transparency of funding and who was really behind these targeted efforts. Activists gathered enough signatures to get Measure J on the ballot by using deceptive photos and manipulative messaging, describing their ballot initiative as a blueprint for activists across the nation. I spoke with voters who had signed the petition for Measure J and felt shocked and deceived when they learned what it actually meant.

The Tresch family farm runs 750 cows on 2000 certified organic acres and were the second dairy in the western U.S. to receive an organic certification. They would have been classified a "factory farm" and shut down under Measure J.

Dayna Ghirardelli, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, is hopeful that the energy created by the No on Measure J movement is an opportunity to get the community more invested in local agriculture. She says voters had farmers’ backs; showing up to “preserve local farms, food security, and rural lifestyles.”

“This landslide defeat indicates that Sonoma County agriculture is supported and worth protecting,” she said in an email. ““We look forward to building upon the foundational momentum that has been created among agriculture, environmental, labor, and business organizations to work together in protecting Sonoma County well into the future.”

As for Lydia Tresch and her family, the work of managing a farm and feeding their community goes on.

“It’s onto the next. Cows still need to be fed, milked, fields need to be plowed, all of it. I think we’re all just thinking what we can do now to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and that’s the next step.”

Photo credit: Scout Denatale