“Ever at the risk of screwing up, I constantly want to learn and change in a way,” said Tom within 15 minutes of me first meeting him. Tom O’Gorman is one of the few people in the world who will smile and instantly open up to new strangers, especially those who stop by his farm off Highway 299. “Unwillingness to change and never acceptanting new ideas is the case with so many farmers these days. It is sad and holding back revolutionary ideas.” 

Tom founded Trinity River Farms in the early 1970’s when he was just in early 20’s. He has constantly experimented with the positioning and rotation of fruit and vegetable crops, and he has never just mindlessly followed farmer textbooks. “Science isn’t sufficient, but it is necessary.” He’s always open minded and will take everything into consideration, but insists that listening to his farm’s ecosystem is crucial.

“Regardless of religion or spirituality, [listening] is necessary for the unanswerable science questions on how to nurture the different crops ecosystem. Weather and other factors change constantly, so we need to adapt as well to thrive.”

Besides talk of drought, and specifically, the heat that almond farmers received during the last California drought, most “organic” farmers follow only minimum rules to slap the “organic” label on their package and sell at a premium. “The whole concept of organic versus conventional is vague politics and it makes a lot of farmers overlook the fundamentals, such as good soil and sustainability of crops with the soil.” Tom is worried that the ethical side of organics has been lost because unspecific labeling standards allow brands to cut corners. Our modern concept of organic food is blurry, at best.

One of the biggest issue among farmers, according to Tom, is political divisiveness, in which people choose and force others to choose one side or the other. Tom is vocal about his political philosophy and always just named movement as an arbitrary name such as “Jane.” “The concept of us versus them is dangerous. We need to work together.”

An idealistic team player, Tom offers up business classes to teenagers or young adults living in this remote area. He has also led the town in strategic tree planting for max CO2 consumption, careful to always allow sufficient sunlight for crops. He is very scientific in his approach to growing certain tree varieties, and successfully planted a clone of Sequoiadendron giganteum that is growing on his farm near the river.

While he may seem staunch in his ways, at times, Tom embraces computerized systems like plant watering automation. “The modern stuff is really neat...it will allow us to feed the planet without destroying the environment.” Politics vanish when the topic of conversation changes to shared optimism