Northern California property owners flock to grazing companies as fire outlook worsens

Santa Rosa resident Jean Schulz spent hours beating back the invasive star thistle on her 12 acres with a weed whacker, but it kept returning.

Then, she discovered a better option — livestock grazing.

The widow of legendary cartoonist Charles Schulz hired Jan Canaday with Living Systems Land Management of Coalinga and her goats and sheep to chew through the tall grasslands outside her home in the foothills near the Luther Burbank Center.

“The goats are hilarious. They’ll eat everything,” she told the Business Journal.

Schulz experienced a burgeoning business model for four-legged fire prevention.

And despite the hurdles ranging from government overtime laws and the prices of supplies, more grazing companies are popping up in the North Bay and beyond to rake California’s bucolic hillsides.

“I got into it because I was at a point in my life when you I got into the whole environmental thing. Plenty of people in West County and Sebastopol have been doing this,” Schulz said, while noting the ranching practice’s nostalgic nature as one that stands the test of time. “I’m passionate about this.”

Schulz is not alone. Marilyn Pahr coos when she recalled hearing a herder from Peru last summer singing his sheep to sleep on a hillside near the Oakmont Community Garden in Sonoma Valley.

“And I’ve heard this guy talking to them,” the Santa Rosa resident said on one recent evening, while pointing to the recreational vehicle parked next to the senior development’s garden.

A crowd had gathered there earlier on Oakmont Drive to watch and photograph the livestock.

Don’t kid yourself. Sheep whispering and popularity aside, the hired guns of the livestock world — which include munching goats — provides much comfort to residents and businesses holding their breaths during a potentially explosive fire year in California.

For Michael and Cindy Harman, it’s personal. The couple just moved to Oakmont this year, after losing their home in the Tubbs Fire of 2017.

“If this doesn’t make you smile, nothing will,” Michael Harman said, while trying to put a positive spin on the devastation the couple faced when the firestorm consumed more than 36,000 acres over Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties and killed almost two dozen people.

Today, local farmer Chase Cianfichi has returned to the Fountaingrove neighborhood with groups of his 2,500 goats and sheep on the hillsides near the Fountaingrove Club off the Parkway to munch on vegetation that could burn in a year characterized as one with exceptional drought.

He started the business with 10 goats and his grandfather’s help in 2016.

In the first year, the business raked in more than $30,000 in revenue. His goal is to increase the business by 30%. This year, he expects to meet that goal and then some given the need during an unprecedented drought.

The industry potential is gaining ground fast.

A UC Davis study reports California sheep eat about 700 million pounds of grass and other vegetation each year, removing at least 300,000 acres of fire fuels. About 75 grazers have been established in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The American Sheep Industry Association has no solid numbers on its growth in dollars, but the nationwide advocacy group has sent out a survey to get a grasp of its prevalence.

For a starting price of $3,450 per acre, Cianfichi’s evenly split herds of goats and “hair” sheep will chomp on a minimum of one acre, which takes between three to eight days to clear. His livestock jobs are averaging about 10 to 12 jobs a month.

When people approach them, his animals look then dart away to return to the job. There are always exceptions with varying personalities. Of the few goats Cianfichi has named because they’re considered ranch hands, “Houdini” was known to escape and stray five years ago. The ornery “kid” was the inspiration behind the Chasin’ Goats name. Still, as if the livestock testosterone wore off, the defiant goat has mostly mellowed in his old age, Cianfichi admitted.

For the most part, “they’d be happy to hang out and just stare at you,” he said.

Cianfichi’s goats and sheep — while even priced at a mere $150 to $350 a head — have become rock stars to passersby and clients like the Fountaingrove Club, Keysight Technologies and the Sonoma County Regional Parks department, which requested they mow down the grass on hillsides between Spring Lake and Annadel State Park.

Keysight Technologies has used animals as a fuel abatement tool around its Fountaingrove facility east of Santa Rosa for over a decade.

Senior Vice President Hamish Gray attributes grazing as the reason campus buildings weren’t destroyed in the Tubbs Fire.

A simple business plan, not without obstacles

Beyond the obvious slew of expenses such as vaccinations, fencing, trucks, trailers, fuel and water, labor may turn out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for some grazing operations.

A new California labor law classifies herders as around-the-clock agriculture employees working 168 hours a week, requiring companies pay 120 hours of overtime.

Farm bureaus and agriculture advocates are lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators for an exemption to Assembly Bill 1066 for the herders. They claim sheep- and goat herders barely put in a six-hour day, much less a 24-hour one. The extra labor costs are expected to be astronomical for this type of business.

Canaday, who launched her California Central Valley grazing business in 2003 as one of the industry pioneers, predicts some grazing companies will not survive this new law or never make it off the ground.

“That’s going to put people out of business,” said Canaday. With more than 9,000 sheep and goats on the 100 acres she shares with husband Mike, the firm has contracted with the Oakmont Village Association, city of San Rafael and Mill Valley Unified School District, among other customers.

Her grazing business spins off $2 million a year in gross revenue but nets $17,000 once the bills are paid.

“As long as we can pay our bills, we’re happy. We just don’t take vacations,” she said, adding the money isn’t the only reason. “Animals don’t take vacations.”

Canaday insists the line of work isn’t for everyone. And about the time when more of the younger set may consider this new type of ranching, she believes the overtime rule will steer many away from going into the business.

Support may be on the way

“It doesn’t make any sense. We need this to fix the wildland fuels problem. I thought we turned the corner on this years ago,” California Farm Bureau Director of Labor Affairs Bryan Little said of the law.

Little appeared offended at the notion that agricultural employers are trying to “rip off” their workers.

“All they need to do is adopt the federal classification,” he said. “Why would they shoot themselves in the ‘hoof’?”

In 2015, the Obama Administration’s labor department pegged livestock herders as working 48 hours a week.

While the state farm bureau is taking its grievances to the man at the helm of state government, regional agencies are petitioning their local jurisdictions to adopt their own set of rules.

Stephanie Larson, the University of California Cooperative Extension Sonoma County director and livestock and range management adviser, shared a letter written to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors asking it to intervene and waive the ag regulations for herders.

“The county has a unique opportunity to support the economic development of a contract grazing-wildfire mitigation economy now,” the letter reads.

Larson expects to bring a long list of financial requests to the board within a month. She wants to add to the $5,000 the group received in seed money from Rebuild North Bay and $600,000 it got from the Pacific Gas & Electric settlement. The county received $3.7 million for vegetation management as a result of the same settlement.

This time, Larson would like $500,000 from the county to advance programs such as a “robust, countywide” vegetative management plan, “regenerative grazing school,” landowner-based proposal, equipment rental hub, infrastructure grants, marketing program and an expansion of the Match.Graze online platform that connects grazing companies with property owners seeking their services. The hub serves under the same principles as an online dating website.

Her letter adds a proposal for an entrepreneurship program that teaches those wanting to learn the business of grazing the ins and outs of this line of work.

“We definitely need more grazers. We use grazing for fire prevention and species enhancement,” she said of growing proof that using livestock to graze heals the soil and captures carbon that would normally be emitted into the air.

“Definitely grazing reduces the fire risk,” she said.

Thus far this year, Cal Fire counted 3,784 wildfires that burned more than 20,000 acres in the state by mid-June.

To Deputy Director Nick Schuler, the danger level is accelerating, requiring accessing all the tools in the toolbox.

“Any effort that could be made around homes and property is a good thing.”

California Fire Marshal Staff Chief Steve Hawks, who worked in the Napa-Sonoma Cal Fire office for years, is all too familiar with the danger of fire in the North Bay. Hawks is convinced that continuous grazing makes a difference to avert the frequency of wildfires in the region.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is fuel reduction. The grass will grow back. That’s the one thing the goats are really good at is keeping the grass down,” he said. “There are some areas where goats are a better option than crews.”

Susan Wood covers law, cannabis, production, energy, transportation, agriculture as well as banking and finance. For 25 years, Susan has worked for a variety of publications including the North County Times, now a part of the Union Tribune in San Diego County, along with the Tahoe Daily Tribune and Lake Tahoe News. She graduated from Fullerton College. Reach her at 530-545-8662 or susan.wood@busjrnl.com