When you bite into a crisp apple, or enjoy local eggs for breakfast, do you ever wonder about the work that went into producing that delicious food? Susanna Sidensticker does — in fact, as the co-owner and co-operator of Bee the Change Microfarm in Willits, she has little time to think about anything else.
Bee the Change is a family owned and operated micro farm specializing in raising chickens, ducks, quail, rabbits and pigs using organic regenerative practices that work in harmony with nature since 2019. In the winter season, you can find their quail eggs at Ukiah Natural Foods, and every other week they are at the Ukiah Farmers Market with various types of meat and eggs.
Purebred, registrable kunekune piglets and purebred mangalista piglets will be available in April.
At this point, the hard work of Seidensticker and her partner Ian Fraser-Shapiro isn’t yielding a living wage — but for them, that’s not the point. In the meantime, they sustain their farm using several streams of income, including Fraser-Shapiro’s full time job in San Francisco. At one point a few years ago, 5 jobs were needed between these two farmers in order to make ends meet.
Apprehension over the direction of the world, coupled with mental health challenges, drove the couple to begin farming. “I have a lot of mental health issues that I've had my whole life, both anxiety and depression, and I have a lot of anxiety about the state of the world, the state of climate, local food systems… we see it whenever there's a disaster.” Seidensticker explained. “We see it now with eggs. Environmental health is incredibly important to me, especially pollinator health and all those good things, diversity and the ecosystem health… I want to make a positive impact in the world. The more I do this, and the more I learn, I don't eat any non-local meat anymore because it creeps me out, frankly.”.
One of Sidensticker’s most coveted products are her farm-raised meat birds. Clamoring customers at market sometimes express frustration at the limited availability of her meat, but Susanna is quick to point out that it takes close to a year for one of her birds to make it from nest to plate. She starts with her own farm laid eggs, and raises heritage breeds that take longer to mature than the conventional ones found in the supermarket.
“It's a huge job and when I see what we charge, and for me, I feel like we're charging at the high end at the market, I often kind of grapple with that cause really we want to feed people, but we also, as I said, operate at a loss.” Seidensticker explained. “But then when I think about how much time it takes… like our ducks, they're hard to pluck because ducks are water resistant by nature and so they're very fluffy, and they also have this under feather layer that you have to pluck as well. So they take a long time just to pluck, and then after that there's the processing. So I think it takes the two of us about a half an hour per duck just to pluck. Then there's the incubation period (for the eggs) and then there's the brooding period, where they're under lights which ducks take about 9 weeks to fully feather, as opposed to chicks which take about 6, so that they're under lights for that long and then they move outside and it's a whole process, and it definitely takes a ton of time and if we're at a farmers' market, we will have people that get mad at us for being out of something and it's like we're sorry, but it's just us and it takes time.”
Before moving up north to Mendocino County, Seidensticker and Fraser-Shapiro farmed in San Luis Obispo. Seidensticker cited the increased expense of homeowner’s insurance and energy in Mendocino county as challenges for their farm operations, but also stated that the natural beauty and self-reliant spirit of the county outweighed any negatives.
“If we're gonna make it anywhere, it's gonna be here and we love it and we do wanna be a part of the community, feed the community. I don't believe in self-sustainability, I believe in community sustainability, and that's really what we want.” she added.