I combined an 8” hoss tools oscillating hoe with an electric mini bike. It is both fun to use and utilitarian. It is a one off and I am always happy when a google search doesn’t reveal anything similar.
This electric cultivator together with an electric tractor are the only power equipment I use to farm/ garden. My farm has had a 5.8 kW solar array for ten years and two powerwalls for a little over five years. My irrigation, refrigeration and home electric needs have been 88% solar powered for about decade . The solar and batteries have paid back the purchase price of my system . I still have grid supplied power but my electric bill averages about $30 a month .
I have been raising market pigs for the last decade and the solar system has supplied all the energy to keep my eight chest freezers operating. I will admit any transport of product or feed has been done with internal combustion . I am tired of feeding fossil fuels into trucking in a business that is not much better than break even. My farm has produced about a million dollars of pork but my days as a swineherd are dwindling.
I had a garden , a farm stand and a few years as a market gardener before the pigs came along. The pigs were initially intended to feed on all the vegetables that kept going into compost from the farm stand but they kinda took over. After a decade however I would like to restart my former vegetable stand with a goal to measure productivity of an electric farm.
How many calories can one farmer and electric tools produce? Just like my solar/ battery system paid back its purchase price with reduced electric bills how long does it take to produce enough vegetables to repay the cost of the new tools? If there is some way to calculate the embedded energy costs of producing the whole system of solar electrics and farm tools then how many food calories need to be produced to repay the embedded fossil fuel costs? These are valid questions and they have quantifiable answers.
I will be recording weights of vegetables and grains produced but farming entails cover cropping and soil building with legumes and added compost. These projects require energy and are necessary for healthy soils and productive crops. The energy expended for soil building can only be recouped with vegetables and grains produced but some accounting for the work required to maintain soil health is still necessary . Furthermore soil building and adding organics are one of the few ways we have at our access to pull atmospheric carbon back into the soil.
I do hope my project draws the attention of some agriculture college or other farmers interested in ag electrics. The tools are off the shelf available and I have a few acres to farm.
So zero fossil fuels for farm equipment, fertilizer, farm electric needs or irrigation and to the best of my abilities to avoid fossil fuel transport of production.
Buellton, California; Bruce Steele, with his hoe in vegetable garden, Winfield Farm | Credit: Macduff Everton
At a time when supporting honestly raised, regionally grown, sustainably minded food is on the lips of every self-respecting restaurant lover, why is it essentially impossible to make a stable living off of working the land?
In the case of one Buellton farm, which rose to prominence raising the exact kind of gourmet pork that source-conscious chefs seek out, the rigamarole of regulations combined with high costs and low market prices is forcing them out of the pig business. Instead, they’re shifting to subsistence farming as a model for survival, exploring how harvests of buckwheat, barley, amaranth, acorns, spelt, squash, corn, cactus, and many other crops can support modern human existence.
“This is not just my story,” said Bruce Steele, who owns Winfield Farm with his wife, Diane Pleschner-Steele, together raising the country’s largest registered breeding herd of swallow-belly Mangalitsa pigs for more than a decade. “It’s all of us.”
Over the next few months, they’ll be winding down operations, selling off the last of their once-celebrated chops, ribs, and sausages to restaurant chefs and home cooks. Similar woes are being felt all across California, from the nearby Motley Crew Ranch — which just opened a meat market in Buellton but is no longer raising large animals — to J&R Natural Meats, which shut down its two Paso Robles butcher shops last year, and the famed Llano Seco Meats in Chico, which closed in 2023 after 162 years of selling to top restaurants.
“What has happened is that human technological and physical infrastructures for regional food systems have essentially disappeared,” explained Shakira Miracle of the Santa Barbara County Food Action Network (SBCFAN). “Our small-scale producers are the ones who are suffering.” She’s been working with farmers on potential remedies for their compounding woes since 2021, and hopes to open Lompoc’s federal prison as a new regional processing site in 2026.
That’s already too late for Winfield Farm. “This doesn’t work,” lamented Bruce on the porch of his drying shed one morning last fall as bright sunshine recharged the solar-powered property. “Nothing you can do will ever work,” he continued, to which Diane added the caveat, “in California.”
Winfield Farm’s Bruce Steele feeds some of his remaining Mangalitsa pigs. | Credit: Macduff Everton
Bruce’s farming saga goes back to the 1860s near Moorpark, where generations of his family tended beanfields that evolved into orange groves. When he was at Camarillo High, he’d visit his grandparents and extended family in Oregon, where they’d moved to raise cattle and alfalfa while practicing plenty of traditional food preservation techniques.
“They were all babies of the Depression,” said Bruce, who is 70 years old. “That had a huge mental impact on those who went through that time.”
He enjoyed the lifestyle, especially gardening with his Aunt Shirley. “I always wanted to be a farmer — that was maybe my first mistake,” he laughed. “My grandfather said, ‘If you ever want to make any money, don’t do this! If you buy land, buy water!’ ” (It’s no coincidence that Winfield Farm has riparian water rights along the Santa Ynez River.)
But Bruce also loved fishing, and marine biology classes led him to pursue hard-hat diving as a career, originally intent on working the deepwater oil rigs. No one took him seriously at 18 years old, so he wound up back in Ventura County, settling into life as an urchin diver in 1973.
The route from his house in Camarillo to Anacapa Island and back was easy, and he’d stash away $100 a day after
covering his current and future expenses, selling urchin for 8 cents a pound. (Today, the popular spiny treats can fetch $10 a pound.)
“It was like a banker’s hours!” he exclaimed. He kept at it after moving to Santa Barbara in 1976, building a life and well-known garden on the Mesa, and was still diving for urchin regularly until about a decade ago.
“In my heart, I’m still an urchin diver,” said Bruce, who was a major player in the development of the rules and zones that govern fishing today. “I still have a permit.”
Diane Pleschner-Steele and Bruce Steele outside of their home. | Credit: Macduff Everton
In 2000, he used urchin income to purchase 30 flat, occasionally flooded acres between the Santa Ynez River and Highway 246, just west of Buellton, and named it Winfield Farm after his dad’s middle name. Bruce and Diane — who worked for two decades as the head of the nonprofit California Wetfish Producers Association — started farming a wide variety of common row crops like tomato, melon, and squash, selling them at their farmstand every summer.
The farm generated a massive amount of compost, which is where the pigs come in, as they’re ideal for eating such scraps. But not just any pigs: the almost-extinct Mangalitsa breed from Hungary, discovered after the Iron Curtain fell with only around 100 pigs remaining.
Like the Ibérico breed of Spain — whose jamonistas are credited with rediscovering and restoring the Mangalitsas — these pigs produce incredibly marbled, intensely flavorful meat. “They’re the only pigs other than Ibérico that can be called pata negra,” said Diane of the top-shelf “black foot” designation animals, which Bruce feeds a special malted barley spiked with chestnut powder. “If you feed tannins to these pigs, it changes the fat composition,” he said of such nut powders, citing recent research out of Serbia.
Winfield Farm welcomed its first swallow-bellied Mangalitsas in 2013, and the herd grew exponentially in size, reaching about 120 at peak pig. Many restaurants were buying the meat, particularly the late Jeff Olsson of Industrial Eats as well as, on occasion, Barbareño, Barrelworks, and Chef Cameron Ingle when he was at Pico in Los Alamos. (Today, Niner Wine Estates in Paso Robles is the most dedicated buyer.) The Ritz-Carlton Bacara’s chef at the time was also a steady customer, and that’s where Bruce was planning to supply pork for an event about eight years ago when he got a standard inquiry about his liability insurance.
He quickly learned that California regulators frowned on farms that raise both vegetables and pigs. “Pigs and vegetables?” they told him. “You’re canceled!”
According to Bruce, the issue goes back to an E. coli outbreak in the Salinas Valley. “No one really knows what happened,” he said. “But they blamed the pigs.”
Such concern makes sense on the industrial farming scale, but applying such broad regulations to a tiny farm that only sold produce to neighbors? Bruce and Diane felt like unintended targets. It wouldn’t be the last time.
Suddenly, since pork made marginally more income than vegetables, Winfield Farm was out of the veggie business.
Bruce Steele threshes buckwheat in the middle of Winfield Farm. | Credit: Macduff Everton
Meanwhile, the pork business got harder. COVID killed restaurants for a time, although the direct-to-consumer market briefly exploded. The war in Ukraine, which was a major global supplier of grain, caused feed prices to skyrocket, doubling Winfield Farm’s cost from around $30,000 a year to more than $60,000. Said Bruce, “You can’t just double the price of your already expensive meat.”
Problems arose close to home as well. “Ultimately, my butcher quit,” said Bruce of when the primary Central Coast butchery service, J&R Natural Meats in Paso Robles, shut down operations last year.
That loss triggered processing problems all across the regionally raised meat realm, although the recent opening of Sinton & Sons in J&R’s place should bring a bit of relief for some ranches. Pigs, however, remain particularly challenging — even more so for Winfield’s large, hairy Mangalitsas, which require special equipment. Unlike many other states, which allow pork to be distributed so long as it’s processed according to each state’s health codes, California regulations require pork to attain federal health standards before being sold broadly.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rules are onerous since they’re aimed at industrial pig farms, but Bruce and Diane feel like they don’t make much sense for small farms like theirs. He said that this is the one law that, if changed to allow state-level approval before distribution, could potentially save California’s small pig farmers.
Instead, the route from Winfield Farm to a plate for this Mangalitsa meat runs from Buellton to Fresno, where the animals can be sparged, all the way down to Glendale, where the USDA-certified Schreiner’s Fine Sausages handles the bacon, ham, sausage, and other smoked meat products. (Smoking is even more highly regulated.) Such transportation is expensive and not very eco-efficient, undermining the critical argument for buying local.
On top of that, California voters in 2018 passed an animal welfare proposition to clean up factory-sized meat operations. The new rules about spacing — which finally went into effect last year after much legal wrangling — didn’t impact operations at Winfield Farm at all, but still created costly confusion and a bunch more hoop-jumping for small farmers. Not only that, but Bruce said that the proposition’s main point of keeping animals out of cages was ultimately relaxed anyway.
Pig farmers like Bruce Steele go a bit cross-eyed when navigating the web of regulations. | Credit: Macduff Everton
“The bottom line is that it didn’t change anything on my farm,” said Bruce. “It’s paperwork that serves no purpose, developed by a bunch of well-meaning people who didn’t have any idea of what the pig business was about.”
“We are also getting out of the pig business,” said Marko Alexandrou of Motley Crew Ranch, located just a few miles west of Winfield Farm on Highway 246. “Until we have a legal slaughter facility in Santa Barbara County, I refuse to continue raising large animals. It’s unfair and inhumane to have to drive them two to three hours north for harvest, saying nothing about the carbon footprint.”
Marko and his wife, Cassidy Alexandrou, have also grappled with the effects of Prop. 12, which they say are burdening small farmers while massive operations have a “free pass” to raise animals under those controversially confined conditions. “Our pigs have so much space that the law is irrelevant, but I still have to register and have someone from the state come by and tell me that my five pigs are okay on five acres,” said Marko.
SBCFAN’s Miracle said that Prop. 12 is a great example of good intentions leading to lots of unintended consequences. “People meant well, but because people are increasingly disconnected from where their food comes from, they do not understand that we have regional producers of crops, seafood, and meats, and then we have this catastrophically different scale of centralized industrial agriculture,” she explained. “It’s the difference between commodifying food, and growing, catching, and raising food that’s going to add net benefits to your health and wellness, to the community, and to the net economy.”
That these distinct versions of agriculture receive the same treatment is baffling for her and so many. “Santa Barbara County, with all its uniqueness, is just a recipe for what is best for us in terms of what we can do with food,” said Miracle. “The challenge is that we need more county, state, and federal lining up on the regulatory side so they’re not contradicting one another.”
When asked about these concerns via email, the state sent back a fairly canned response, and did not respond when emailed follow-up questions. Steve Lyle, the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s director of public affairs, explained that the mission of the state’s Animal Care Program is “to serve animal agriculture producers and California consumers by promoting and protecting the welfare and care of animals in agriculture in order for Californians to have access to food that is sourced from humanely and sustainably raised animals.” And to do that, Lyle said, “All farms are held to the same standards.”
So instead of larger animals, Motley Crew — which just opened a meat market in Buellton after spending $200,000 and 18 months to do so — is sticking to poultry and rabbits, both of which can be legally harvested on the farm and sold direct-to-consumer. “Everyone wants local, organic, regenerative meat, but the reality is that California makes that really hard, and Santa Barbara County makes it nearly impossible,” said Marko. Like Steele, he believes California should allow state rather than federal rules to dictate allowing processing here, and that regulations should be relaxed for tiny ranches such as his.
“The likelihood of those things happening is minimal,” he admitted. “We’ve been advocating for it for 10 years, others longer. The money, the space, and the will are there, but the regulatory process is not.”
The one glimmer of hope on the horizon is opening the federal prison in Lompoc as a USDA-certified meat processing facility. The current push for this came out of a working group that SBCFAN called together in August 2021, though the process has taken a lot more time than most involved assumed.
The prison’s vocational training programs long included butchering courses, and Lompoc once provided meat to many other prisons in the system. That shifted when dairy became more popular, but now there is a willingness to reinvigorate the meat processing facility and make it available to regional ranchers as well.
“We are now in the process of finishing the pre-development of this enterprise, which we hope to launch in 2026,” said Miracle, who needs to raise about $4 million to pay for the final costs. “If we are able to raise the capital needed to finish up the facility, we will launch sooner.”
The plan is not only to open the facility for processing beef and pork, but to also build a network of supply chains so that ranchers can more easily sell their meat into the market as well. “From there, on day one, we will be able to offer USDA-certified beef and pork processing,” said Miracle. “That’s a game-changer for a lot of reasons.”
For Winfield Farm, though, the writing was already covering the walls. “Every single thing is expensive to do here,” said Bruce, noting higher wage and fuel costs than other states. “Restaurants won’t pay you what it costs to do this.”
It was time to ditch the pigs.
Buellton, California; Bruce Steele feeding his pigs, Winfield Farm | Credit: Macduff Everton
Bruce and Diane’s interest in subsistence farming goes back to before COVID. On one New Year’s Eve, he told her that they’d do “The Challenge,” which involves living off of their own land and not going to the store for an extended period of time. They made it a month, and that was without any proper planning. They ate a lot of eggs and acorns.
He started exploring the crops needed to do it for a longer stretch, planting grains, more fruits, and hearty vegetables that last longer on their shelves. He’s learning how to grow and process each of them — farming more than a half-acre all by himself, mostly with a rusty hoe — and, perhaps most importantly, how to turn them into food.
“If you can’t figure out how to cook it and make it taste good,” they both agreed, “you’re wasting your time.”
He’s learned to use the wind to winnow white-blossomed buckwheat, that “you need to crush the hell out of” spelt, and that one ear of corn amounts to a batch of cornbread. A later attempt at The Challenge lasted about three months, but they’re preparing to go all in, even though they admit the cuisine can become a little bland. (I suggested more hot and pickled peppers.)
Left: A bounty of subsistence crops. Right: Acorns are on the menu. | Credit: Matt Kettmann; Macduff Everton
“We’re on the verge of doing it right now,” said Diane, explaining that they’re dining subsistence-style “almost every night.” The night before I visited, for instance, they ate a tomato and cassoulet bean soup with pork meat, followed by a squash pie for dessert.
The whole project — from a solar-powered tractor to the gritty handwork to the knowledge unleashed in ancient grains to using every part of their land to survive — struck me as fascinating, perhaps only eclipsed by the fact that no one seems to care. When I asked if Bruce had any acolytes out at Winfield Farm learning these ways, their response was blunt and disheartening: “No one wants to know.”
Diane’s dream is to document what Bruce is up to, while he would like to see more farmers use his land to explore similar crops and invest in the wisdom they offer. Said Bruce, “It’s gonna matter.”
But Winfield Farm pork is not dead yet. They still have about four months of meat to process and sell, which anyone can buy straight from the farm. To do so, visit winfieldfarm.us.
It sounds like the opening of a joke – A Hungarian pig, an Italian recipe and a South Korean Chef meet in a bar – but the pig roast at BIGA in San Diego was nothing to laugh at. There were however plenty of grins as Chef/Owner, Tae Dickey demonstrated his take on an Italian classic Porchetta Roll. Then the afternoon unfolded into a foodies dream. Six acclaimed chefs incorporated pork into eight tasting courses. Delicious ciders from Bivouac and Duck Foot Brewing’s gluten-free beers were on tap. Regal Wines poured Italian vintages. While culinary culture took a turn away from tradition, satisfaction was definitely served.
BIGA Anniversary Chef Collaboration
This was the third BIGA pig roast and there was no doubt the event would be memorable given the chefs in attendance. There was Davin Waite from Wrench and Rodent. Whenever he shows up get ready for inspired bites. Willy Eick of Mission Bar and Grill has mastered the art of blending traditions deliciously. Carlos Rodriguez, chef de cuisine at BIGA, stirs his Texan roots and Puerto Rican influences in uniquely apt ways.
Evan Cruz of Arterra flavors his creations with a Filipino twist. Johnny Dolan of The Lion’s Share was instrumental in bringing it all together. Pastry Innovator, Kristianna Zabala of Split Bake House presented a plateful of tasty textures in a petite dessert flan laced with lard. But the star performance was Tae Dickey’s Porchetta Roll and the demonstration of his signature dish. You’ll find it on the menu every Saturday at BIGA.
Chef Dickey assembling his Porchetta Roll at BIGA
Chef Dickey is no stranger to culinary culture clashes. He was born in South Korea but moved to Italy with his family as a teenager. He attended the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York before opening BIGA three years ago. Those Italian years branded his cooking sensibilities but he’s not reverent about sticking with tradition. Before the anniversary meal progressed he summoned the crowd to a table near the entry windows. A large tray held a side of pork nest to a row of porcine steaks and a bowl of savory greens. Slapping the smooth pork side, Dickey confessed that “Italians tell you to beat the hell out of that skin” but he doesn’t. His secret is sprinkling baking soda over the surface lightly. “As we learned in chemistry class, baking soda is a natural tenderizer,” then he cautioned that after a few hours it’s important to wipe the soda off. Porchetta is traditionally done with pork loin but Chef Dickey favors a Heritage Breed, the Mangalista Pig.
Watch my video about the Mangalista Pigs and Chef Dickey’s Porchetta:
These pigs are nothing to laugh at either. They grow large and wooly and were originally bred in Hungary, becoming one of the fattest pigs in the world. The rush to Communism almost led to their extinction as meatier breeds became popular. Luckily with recent trends towards all things bacon, demand for the pigs has crossed culinary culture borders. Of course, American farmers were curious and a few are raising these porcine wonders. Near Buellton, California at the Winfield Farm big, curly Mangalitsa Pigs have taken over.
Bruce Steel and one of his prized Mangalista Mommas at Winfield Farm
Owners Bruce and Diane Steele were growing organic vegetables when they decided to add a few pigs. The idea was to feed them with their unmarketable castoffs and past date veggies. They scooped up the acorns growing on their acres of ranchland to finish off the pigs’ diet before going to market. It worked too well as the pigs flourished and then drought conditions hampered their farming. Today they create a range of products including Leaf Lard, which is the highest grade and lower in saturated fat than other animals. It’s also higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. If that’s hard to swallow remember that that’s the same kind of fat that gives olive oil its healthy reputation.
Leaf Lard by the quart from Winfield Farm.
Visit the Mangalica Pig Festival
Perhaps you’ll visit Hungary where the pigs have made a healthy comeback. They’ve rebounded from a few hundred to over 50,000 and are featured in everything from family style to haute cuisine dishes. Since 2007, an annual Mangalica Festival promotes products and hog farmers. The Festival in Budapest celebrates with cooking competitions, dozens of Mangalica dishes and over 100 exhibitors. It’s become one of the biggest gastro events of the year. Held in February it’s also one of the coldest but this year Palinka, a strong Hungarian drink will be showcased. The drink is distilled from a selection of local fruits that include apricot, cherry, apples, plums, and pears. If I were there I’d sip the Elderflower and spiced versions but pace myself. With 40 to 50% alcoholic content it’s sure to warm up festival crowds.
Hungarian Parliament in springtime
The Festival is held in a plaza near the riverside Parliament building. The location makes it east to attend by public transportation, train, and even riverboat. For tips about getting around Budapest see this earlier post.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure in culinary cuisine and will share it with your friends or bookmark it for future reference.
Life is good at Winfield Farm this spring! In celebration, we’re pleased to offer this SPRING ’19 SPECIAL on some very special Mangalitsa products.
Mangalitsa Finocchiona salami is now available through our online Mangalitsa Market, cured by Alle Pia Fine Cured Meats. (USDA approved, Alle Pia also cures our Mangalitsa Lardo. You can order Mangalitsa lardo directly from Alle Pia.
http://www.allepiasalumi.com/products/lardo )
Finocchiona salami gets its flavor from traditional Chianti wine from Italy, crushed fennel seeds and black pepper. Finocchiona is one of the most loved among Tuscan pork products. Its name derives from “finnocchio”, or fennel, with the crushed seeds added for enriched taste and aroma.
7 ounces of pure deliciousness!!
$16 each
We also asked Alle Pia to cure Mangalitsa guanciale, traditional pork jowl, for us – an absolute must for creating authentic dishes like carbonara or Amatriciana. The higher fat content melts like magic over pastas and sautees. Slice thin or dice and add to any dish. Eat it plain, put thin slices over warm bread as an appetizer, sauté in pan with onions, add to spinach or any other dish for amazing flavor.
$25 per pound (vacuum sealed packages average approx. 2+ pounds)
This spring, we also have on hand a bountiful supply of: Mangalitsa large link sausage –
Flavors: Sweet Italian and Sheboygan Bratwurst
$12 per pound (packs contain 3 links, approx. 1 pound)
Mangalitsa Babyback Ribs
$12 per pound (racks average 1+ pound)
Full rack spare ribs
$10 per pound (racks average 1.5 – 2 pounds+)
Mangalitsa bone-in sirloin chops
$15 per pound (chops average .5 to .75 pounds each)
If you haven’t tried Mangalitsa, you REALLY should –– and taste the Magic for yourself. To entice you, here’s a
SPRING ’19 SPECIAL – 10 percent discount on the products listed above.
To order please email us directly at:
bruce@winfieldfarm.us and indicate
“Spring 19 Special” in the subject line.
(Please make sure to include your shipping address and telephone number in your order.)
We will invoice you via PayPal and you can pay with credit card online.
(Please note: Offer is good while supplies last, or until May 31, 2019)
This special offer is NOT posted on our online Mangalitsa Market.
(Note: Special offer excludes shipping/handling cost.
Winfield Farm ships via Golden State Overnight to western states only — WA, OR, CA, NV, ID, UT, AZ, NM.)
Shopping — your cart will add and display your selections on each product page below. You may continue to shop and add items to your order until you wish to checkout. Use the dropdown list under Mangalitsa Market for quick access to our products.
Minimum order $40.
PLEASE CALL 805.686.9312 BEFORE ORDERING ONLINE TO ENSURE PRODUCT IS AVAILABLE.
We supply Mangalitsa pork to local restaurants and some cuts are in high demand. Also not all sausage flavors are available all the time, but can be custom ordered.
We will of course refund any portion of an order placed that we cannot fulfill, or with your approval we may substitute product of comparable value. However, to ensure and simplify your order, please contact us first, before placing your order on PayPal.
Don't forget, you can pre-order particular cuts or sausage flavors and we can have pigs custom processed to your specifications. Just email us your preferences. Processing is seasonal, typically spring and fall. Thank you for your interest in Mangalitsa pork.
