Mark Gaskell is a Farm Advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension where he has been responsible for Small Farms and Specialty Crops in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties of California since 1995.  Mark works with applied horticultural research and educational outreach programs with diverse specialty crops for small farm agriculture.  Mark has worked with the development of multiple new crop alternatives and some of his research and grower education efforts in recent years has included tea as an alternative agritourism crop on coastal California small farms.

Six-year old field planting of tea at Forbidden Fruit Orchard near Lompoc, CA (Santa Barbara County)