Borderland 10
MARFA, TEXAS. Remember “Giant”— one of the early wide screen movies starring Rock Hudson, James Dean, and Elizabeth Taylor? Well, it was filmed here in Marfa and is immortalized at the Paisano Hotel where the cast stayed long enough that the hotel has been declared a historic treasure.
Whether you approach this town from the north, south, east, or west it is clear why Marfa was chosen as the best site for filming Edna Ferbers’ grand novel of Texas cattle and Texas oil— the range land begins just outside of town and extends as far as the eye can see. It is a stirring landscape.
So imagine that you are riding a motorcycle, that you left Study Butte in the morning after deciding that you would not visit Joe Black Spring because you want to meet Joe Black later, not sooner. Imagine that you have been surrounded, for the last two days, by gigantic RVs and a dusty culture of disconnection. Imagine also a landscape, in Terlingua, that is as close to the original Mel Gibson Road Warrior movie as you can get and not be radioactive.
Even with that, you will not be prepared for the vision at the side of the road just north of Marfa: crystalline white buildings— greenhouses— that fill the horizon.
I am not kidding. This is not hyperbole. Fill the horizon. You must imagine the largest greenhouse you have ever seen and then multiply by a kaleidoscopically large number. We are not talking so much about a greenhouse as a vision from the X-Files or some unregistered Federal presence that was meant to be in Roswell to house reproducing aliens and their fleet of flying saucers.
I stop the motorcycle, turn around, and enter the facility. It is a series of linked greenhouses and what appears to be a shipping facility. I clock one of the greenhouses and it measures about 2/10ths of a mile on my odometer. This greenhouse, one next to it, and another are completely filled with tall tomato plants. Hundreds of thousands of tomato plants.
Entering the office area, I ask if there is someone who can tell me about the buildings. No, I am told, but you can go up the road toward Fort Davis and look for Paul Selina. He’ll tell you all about it.
I ride up the road and find a virtually identical facility. Herds of tomatoes, as far as the eye can see.
Mr. Selina isn’t there, either.
Later, by phone, Mr. Selina tells me that Village Farms is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eco-Sciences, a publicly traded company (ticker ECSC) that grows and markets vegetables and flowers. When their operations in Holland are added, the company has thousands of acres of greenhouses, of which 106 acres are in Marfa and Fort Davis.
“The reason they are here is we can grow premium greenhouse tomatoes. The locations in Fort Davis and Marfa were selected to optimize production in the winter months. We’re growing hydroponically, drip feeding in a computer controlled environment,” he told me.
“ We follow a ‘little but often’ strategy for watering, giving the plants small amounts of water frequently. It’s about a half gallon of water per plant per day, but it can be as high as a gallon a day in July.”
How much do the greenhouses produce?
“Last year we grew 45 million pounds of tomatoes here. That’s about 220 tons per acre. We have about 10,000 plants per acre so we’ve got about a million plants.”
Next time I make a tomato salad I know what I will say.
“Git along there, little doggies!”
Next: A great raw deal in Juarez
Borderland
Starting the journey: Riding into Laredo
A statistical picture of life along the border
Austin: The incredible disappearing Slacker
San Antonio: High Times and Low Water
Yturria Land and Cattle and El Canelo Ranch: Where’s the Beef?
Brownsville: Lifeguard on the Rio Grande
McAllen: Fields of dreams
All roads lead to Crystal City
Big Bend and the bridge at Presidio
Marfa: Herds of tomatoes, as far as the eye can see
Tucson: Containing growth
Tucson: Born to be wild?
Yuma and the dusty road to Mexicare
San Diego: The Ultimate Crop
Notes, mile marks and pictures
Sources:
YouTube trailer for “Giant” — James Dean strikes oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WphCvOubE
This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
Photo :Scott Burns/North from Presidio
(c) A. M. Universal, 2000