Is specialty coffee the next big agriculture boom in Fallbrook, Bonsall and De Luz?

According to some, specialty coffee farming could become the next big thing in North County.

"This is the next big cash crop for California," Chuck Badger III of R.E. Badger & Son Inc. said. "We see an amazing future in specialty coffee, and we're excited. We really believe that if growers make the investment into coffee now, in a few years, they are going to be much more financially stable per acre."

Based on estimates by Badger, he said that with an investment of about $40,000, depending on the property and needs, farmers can expect a net profit of about $45,000 to $50,000 a year after maintenance and water cost.

After planting a test acre a little more than two years ago in Rancho Santa Fe and seeing quick returns, Badger said the company is going big with coffee.

"We are planting another acre in Fallbrook, 2 acres in North Vista right next to Bonsall and another three or four acres in De Luz," Badger said. "We have a friend who is looking at planting at 10-12 acres as well in that area."

R.E. Badger & Son has been in the citrus, premium flowers and crop management business since 1922. They started with oranges and switched to lemons in the 1970s and 80s.

"The lemons are good, but the future is coffee," Badger said. "We have no doubt that in 10 years, Bonsall, Fallbrook and the De Luz areas will be covered in specialty coffee."

But how did Badger and his dad, Chuck Jr., get into the coffee game?

Enter Jay Ruskey, owner of Good Land Organics and founder of Frinj Coffee.

"We needed to make a change and after going to see Jay's farm, my dad was convinced," Badger said.

Ruskey is credited for bringing a successful blueberry industry to California, and he has an edge for the rare and exotic fruits and helping develop those markets. With a background in marketing, he was able to develop a consumer market for the crops.

After hooking up with Mark Gaskell, a farm adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension, in 2001 and planting the first crop of coffee on his Santa Barbara farm in 2002, Ruskey was all in on coffee.

He founded and established Frinj Coffee last year and provides plant materials, post-harvest processing and sales management to growers all over California, including the Fallbrook, Bonsall, De Luz and even Temecula area.

"A lot of people were pretty skeptical of the success of coffee at the beginning; the market 15 years ago was very different than it is today," Lindsey Mesta, chief marketing officer of Frinj Coffee said. "Selling a higher-end coffee was kind of an anomaly, but over the last 15 years, it has really developed on the consumer side. Increasingly higher price points on the ceiling of coffee at different auctions around the world, as well as rare and more scarce coffees coming on the scene, everything kind of worked together rather nicely for California."

Ruskey started a nursery on his farm five years ago, started selling trees that were descendants of the varietals he started with and embarked on creating the next generation of coffee plants in California by selling those plants to farmers in his immediate area.

"He wanted to see how well the whole system could be replicated," Mesta said. "It did really well. That handful of farmers that we worked with for the last five to eight years have been producing really high-scoring coffee and similar cup qualities to us. So, that was a big, encouraging milestone to us to kind of keep expanding."

Enter the Southern California market.

"That's how coffee came to Fallbrook and Bonsall areas, we were basically targeting avocado farmers, because avocados have a very similar climate and soil ph. to what's needed for coffee," Mesta said. "So the avocado regions throughout California became a very important place to start expanding coffee into. Simultaneously, the avocado industry was a little bit in a crunch on the small farm side, due to some pressures from prices from product coming into Mexico, but also the avocado industry has been around long enough that farmers are needing to either replace their trees or diversify or switch out crops."

The idea was that Frinj Coffee could help farmers diversify their crops.

"The cool part was that coffee and avocados can live together on a property," Mesta said. "So there was now a layering effect, with dual incomes and dual crops and seasons that could work together over the course of the year. Instead of avocados just being harvested at certain times and the rest of the year being rather minimal on bringing in income, they could add coffee and maximize income potential."

Like avocados, coffee plants don't enjoy frost at all.

"You still have to be pretty precise depending what region you're choosing," Mesta said. "Because frost can happen in a low valley setting where cold air sinks, and it can also happen at too high elevation, so we tend to stay coastal on slopes and south-facing land. It is very dependant on the property because you have to look at every facet of the micro climate."

One of the more high profile clients of Frinj is musician Jason Mraz who is growing coffee plants on his farm near the Oceanside region of Morro Hills. With the help of Fallbrook High School graduate Benjamin Myers, who serves as a growers program manager for Frinj Coffee, more and more acres are growing coffee.

"Every new farmer that we work with has their own little story and own setting for the coffee – it's been really fun; as the years have gone on, we've been planting larger properties and more trees per planting," Mesta said. "It's going to be very exciting the next 5 to 10 years with how much coffee is going to be coming out of California. We have this community of growers that are working together collectively to create successful crops."

According to Mesta, the demand for coffee is growing faster for specialty market than it is for the commodity market. She said Frinj Coffee is primarily seeking commercial size growers with more than one or 2 acres to plant.

"Mostly to make sense because of the amount of time it takes to get a crop, you want to make sure you get enough when you get there," she said. "It's an exciting, new industry for people in that area because we've shown the viability of the market."

Interested growers should contact Myers if they are interested in growing coffee on their property.

"It's pretty much the full picture for the farmer," Mesta said. "They can step into this market and know pretty much that they are going to be able to sell this product and that they're working with someone that can make quality coffee. Which is important because you can grow quality coffee, but you can mess it up if you don't take care of it after it's harvested."

For more information on Frinj Coffee, visit http://www.frinjcoffee.com.