San Mateo County Farm Bureau president honored for distinguished service

“I do it because I’m very passionate for agriculture. I don’t expect anything,” he said. “All I expect is thanks once in a while, and keep on trying to keep it alive in our economy and bring it much back as we possibly can, and preserve it for our future generations and the food for our economy and our people.” 

The award — which has been given out around 90 times in the California Farm Bureau’s 107-year history — stems from Burns’ long-standing efforts to keep agricultural land viable for farming and ranching, Jess Brown, San Mateo County Farm Bureau executive director, said. 

“A lot of agricultural land is being preserved, but it doesn’t always mean that farming has continued on it,” he said. “He’s a big, big believer that agriculture should remain a viable and important part of the economy in San Mateo County.” 

The award is not the first time Burns has been honored for his work — he was named the county’s farmer of the year in 1995, according to a press release from the Farm Bureau Dec. 17. 

Known for his honest approach to the challenges local farmers face, Burns has developed a reputation for advocacy amidst a changing agricultural landscape. 

In particular, he’s passionate about the possibility of developing a local distribution hub where farmers can sell products directly, potentially located in Half Moon Bay or another coastside location. 

“Every opportunity I get, I try to explain to them how it is important that we grow product here and we have a hub that we can distribute it,” Burns said. “It’s surprising the amount of people that don’t know what we have on this coastside, as far as agriculture.” 

Amidst ongoing conversation around farmworker housing, spurred by a 2023 mass shooting that took the lives of seven farmworkers, the county and city of Half Moon Bay has been reconciling with the squalid and untenable living conditions in which many coastal farmworkers and their families were living. 

Burns has been adamant that farmers, as employers and also often as farmworker landlords, need to be included in that discussion, which to him includes conversation around the loss of agriculture and the agricultural workforce in the area. 

“We play a big part, because we’re the ones that employ the farmworkers,” he said. “We’re the last one that anybody wants to listen to, and we keep telling our story.” 

Being a generational farmer and steward of the land comes out of a true passion for the work, Burns said. 

“People think the farmers got a lot of money, but it’s not [that]. It’s the passion you got. It’s not the money you make,” he said. “If you felt you were going to get rich farming — let me tell you something. Forget about it.”