Planting for the Future
Amigo Bob Cantisano — Amigo to just about everyone who knows him — was becoming frustrated. For three years, he had posted an ad on a site maintained by a nonprofit organization called California FarmLink. It described his farm on the San Juan Ridge northeast of Sacramento: 11 acres of registered organic land, heritage fruit and nut trees, hoop houses and a greenhouse, irrigation and equipment, a cabin ready to rent.
It was 2015. After 15 years working the property, Cantisano, who was 63, was struggling with cancer and wanted to step back from the daily work of a mostly hand-tilled farm. He hoped to find a younger farmer who would lease the farm from him, someone who he could train to take over. He expected applications to come flooding in. Instead, only two applicants even made the trek to take a look. Neither wanted to take on the business.
Cantisano has a bushy mustache, a booming laugh and dreadlocks that reach past his waist. He wears shorts and sandals no matter the weather, and always something tie-dyed. He is larger than life in person, and in organic circles he is famous, the founder of more than a dozen businesses that support the daily running of California agriculture and commerce.
But Cantisano needed to find someone to take over his farm, and he worried he was running out of time.
A lot of farmers are in Cantisano’s position. America’s farmers are growing older — their
