Walla Walla Sweet Onions have been grown for over a century on small farms nestled between the Columbia and Snake Rivers and the Blue Mountains. These onions have half the sulfur and more water than other yellow onions, and they don’t make you tear when you cut into them. Sweet onion seeds were first brought to this area from the island of Corsica. Italian immigrant farmers, impressed by their winter hardiness, began cultivating them and selecting onions for seed, based on sweetness, large size and round shape.

Michael Locati’s grandfather started growing sweet onions here when he emigrated from Italy in 1905. Michael grew up on an onion farm, and he describes farming as a kind of disease he tried to avoid. “Once you get into high school you think you are smarter than everyone else, and you think there is a better life out there, so you go out and you explore a little bit,” he laughs. Michael worked a few jobs in the agriculture industry but soon realized he needed to be back on a farm. He comments, “But you don’t just go out with your checkbook and say ‘okay, I want to farm, here’s $500,000; lets do it.’” Michael worked for 12 years as an electrician, and worked his way up to being a contractor, but still dreamed of farming.

In 1979, with no equipment, no land, and no money, Michael started a little onion seed business on the side. He explains, “I just had an idea that I would start farming. I started with one quarter of an acre of Walla Walla Sweet Onion seed. It turned out growers here in the valley were having a hard time producing their own seed, and they started buying the seed from me.” The business grew from there.  By 1987, Michael was a full-time farmer and a full-time electrical contractor. He sold his contracting business and reflects that while he could have done equally well if not better as a contractor:  “My heart was in the farming - so I don’t have any regrets.”

Michael started securing the option to purchase the land he was leasing. Fortunately, some landowners were willing to carry low interest contracts for deed, which made it financially feasible for him to buy the land. He explains, “It’s a nice way to hand these farms down because in some cases the children aren’t interested in farming and these landowners want to keep the farm intact if they can.” Michael’s farm is now close to 500 acres.

Michael has developed a three-year crop rotation to cultivate soil fertility and minimize weed and pest problems. He has also diversified crops to avoid disease problems, chiefly the incurable white rot that is common in the Valley. He explains, “We end up with ground that we can’t use for fall onions anymore. So we’ll put in crops like alfalfa and hay because they are in for five years and we are not tilling the soil. We want to seal that soil down and not contaminate more fields.” He plants asparagus for the same reason: because it is a perennial crop and once it’s in you don’t need to till the soil. The asparagus business also provides additional work for Michael’s employees. He comments, “It keeps our crew busy. We start up in April and keep them until August, and without asparagus we don’t start up until mid-June.” Locati Farms has five seasonal full-time employees, and twenty-five seasonal part-time employees.

Dust and mud are two of Michael’s least favorite parts of farming. The other thing he dislikes is pesticides. He says ardently, “I don’t like dealing with them; I don’t like my employees dealing with them.” So as various pesticides have been taken off of the market over the last two decades, and other farmers have said, “How am I going to survive?“ Michael has said, “Good riddance!” He expounds, “This has opened the door for other things. I have a lot more tools now that I can use that are safer for me, safer for the environment, and safer for my employees.” He continues, “I am not an organic farmer and I am not a conventional farmer. If I have to bring out the big guns, I’ll bring them out, but I try and do everything I can to prevent that situation from happening.” Michael has been experimenting with biological controls, gentler pesticides and minimum till. As a not-quite organic and not-quite conventional farm, Locati Farms is the only Walla Walla Sweet Onion grower that is certified by the Food Alliance, and Michael sells his onions and other produce under that label.

In the early 1990s, the onion growers in the Walla Walla Valley were in danger of losing their market share to large farms outside the area. Large farms would put in a large circle of Walla Walla Sweet Onions – 120 or 240 acres – and dump them on the market. “People would complain, ‘These don’t taste the same,’” recounts Michael. These operations could sell their onions at a cheaper price because of their larger scale of production and mechanical harvesting. Michael explains, “Sometimes they would have a decent crop and then they’d put in three more circles. Well, that equals what all of our little farms do here in the Walla Walla Valley.”

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Michael knew if they didn’t do something the small farmers would all be history. He comments, “It would be, as agriculture often is, that bigger, stronger growers take over that particular market and drive it. It would still have our name – it may get trashed, but it would still be out there – but we wouldn’t have a position in it anymore. We have small fields here and all our harvests are done by hand. Our costs are higher; there is no way you can compete with large-scale farming.”

Michael came up with an idea. He helped found the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Grower’s Association and set to work defending the Walla Walla Valley’s onion legacy. He explains, “The Walla Walla Sweet Onion name wasn’t protected, we didn’t have a trademark or a geographic area. I felt that we needed to protect our industry.” For two years he strategized side by side with seven other growers, crafting a federal marketing order that was submitted to the USDA for approval. In 1995, the order went into effect, protecting the geographic region and the name. Now, only growers within a 15-mile radius of where sweet onions have traditionally been grown and marketed can sell their sweet onions under the Walla Walla name.

Cooperating with other small farmers has been an effective way to stay competitive. When the marketing order came into effect, Michael started building his own packing facility and by 2001 began packing all of his own onions as well as those of a couple of other growers. Then he merged with another company in Walla Walla and built a new packing facility with eight other partners. Michael and his partners now own one of the biggest packing facilities in the Walla Walla industry and produce about 60 to 70 percent of the Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

By working together, the relatively small farms in the Walla Walla Valley are able to achieve some of the economies of scale available to a larger producer. Michael explains, “When I was getting into the industry, I was a grower, packer, shipper, sales person, floor sweeper, everything. Now my full responsibility is growing. I am not running a packing facility, I am not on the phone trying to sell my product anymore. It’s being handled by a partner that is in that line of work and I trust that they’ll do their job and they trust that I’ll do mine. We have a good partnership.”

As for the consumer, now when you buy a Walla Walla Sweet Onion anywhere in the country, you can be assured that you are getting an onion that carries with it the flavors and traditions of the Walla Walla Valley.

Contact:
Locati Farms, Inc.
P.O. Box 327
Walla Walla , WA 99362
Phone: 509.525.0286
www.LocatiFarms.com