Four organic farm operators vie for Grower of the Year in Monterey

By Olivia Hart

Four Grower of the Year finalists include a 15,000-acre Montana farm and a 102-acre California orchard; the Organic Grower Summit will choose one during its Dec. 2-3 meeting in Monterey.

What do the finalists bring to the award?

The Nov. 6, 2026 announcement calls the farms highly productive and sustainable, but provides no common reporting period, crop yields, input prices, organic premiums, market basis or margins. Its profiles describe management practices, not comparative harvest results.

The systems shift spending among labor, fertility inputs, water infrastructure, habitat and monitoring, so those omissions matter.

How does Gularte turn habitat into pest control?

Wayne Gularte, owner-operator of Rincon Farms Inc. in Gonzales, California, uses wild native vegetation, neighboring flowers and shrubs, and streambank plants as pest-control infrastructure that shelters predators of aphids and other crop pests. At a Salinas River farm, he keeps wild riparian vegetation that shelters yellow jackets, wasps, white and yellow bees, syrphid flies, praying mantises, lacewings and ladybugs.

His premise is that aphids will appear, and predator insects must be nearby. He plants alyssum in vegetable fields and believes it harbors syrphid flies, a farmer’s observation rather than a reported trial. He has farmed organically since 1995 and used cover crops for more than 30 years.

He plants rye, barley and sometimes triticale in fall, then turns them into soil in late winter, about a month before broccoli, peas, iceberg lettuce, leafy lettuce and romaine. He credits this with limiting erosion and building organic matter. Catch ponds retain runoff on his sloping Salinas Valley land.

His habitat approach may lower pest pressure, but the announcement gives no pesticide-spending or yield data.

What did organic carrots change for Hopkins?

Donny Hopkins, vice president of internal farming at Bolthouse Fresh Foods, has worked with carrots for 51 years. In 2020, management asked him to grow organic carrots. He told them: “It’s the same concept. It’s different fertilizers, different processes, but we will make it work.”

After consulting a friend and hiring an experienced organic manager, Hopkins found