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I got this email in my in-box today from Colleen that I thought was worth sharing with you. My family belongs to a local CSA but this takes things to a whole new level. Enjoy!

Dear Levi, Jason and Steve.

Last December, I met with Steve Schweigert and introduced him to my associates; Richard Hemsley of Synergy Chef and Kim Glazzard of Organic Sacramento. We brainstormed about my idea to co-jointly use your West Sac site currently inhabited by Shiny Object/Movies on a Big Screen as a temporary home for a brand new Full Belly Farm CSA drop site/organic foods cooperative.

I was able to recruit 20 people who wanted to invest in CSA shares. However, I needed a minimum of 35 people to meet Full Belly Farms requirement to create a new CSA drop site. For two months, I tabled and performed extensive community outreach at several progressive eco-events, distributed several hundred flyers and promoted it on my private listserve of 300 people. Although I was met with enthusiasm by all the folks I contacted, the bottom line is I am still 15 people short for the requirement to get the project off the ground. I happily spent my own money on supplies - but on a modest college student’s budget, I realized it was not fiscally viable for me to continue to deplete my own income.

After much contemplation and soul searching I realized it was for the best not to pursue this project. I recently learned legendary Eatwell Farm in Dixon has just started a brand new CSA business in Sacramento. Del Rio Botanicals, Soil Born Farm and Full Belly Farm are also running veteran, well established urban organic farm CSA operations in Sacramento. With only roughly 2/3 of the folks signed up who I need to create a new CSA/coop in West Sacramento - after two months of slogging hard work to which I gave my blood, sweat and tears - it seemed the prudent thing to do is to switch gears and direct my energies elsewhere.

The good news is, as a result of networking and promoting this West Sac project - I was able to source a philanthropic local landowner in Elverta who owns five acres of pristine, virgin farmland lying fallow he wants farmed organically!

Dr. James Keppler, a beloved local holistic medical practitioner who has been in practice locally for 40 years, offered a core group of my close friends and myself the use of his farmland at no charge. We will not have to pay rent. He magnanimously offered to provide water for our crops. We have been able to convince folks in the community to donate open pollinated organic seeds, farming tools and various supplies. We have quite limited cash flow, and cannot afford to purchase organic fertilizer, seaweed foliar spray, and compost - so we are being creative. We collected free horse manure from a local equestrian center and are mulching with recycled soy ink based newspaper. We plan to ask neighboring folks in Elverta to donate any extra straw they have for mulching. Last week we held a benefit concert which was organized in just a few days raising $100.00 “seed money”. 40 people signed up to serve as volunteers. We are planning another benefit musical concert “happening” in Midtown to be held in a few weeks.

We are utilizing Masanobu Fukuoka’s “No Till” “One Straw Revolution” style agriculture, raised beds ala’ Biodynamic farming theory and Permaculture/Sustainable Agriculture. Eventually, we want to start an apiary and an orchard - along with a wide variety of vegetable and berry crops. There are already about a dozen black walnut trees which have borne nuts in a well established grove. There are two functioning water taps on the property. It will be a snap to set up drip irrigation to conserve water. The farm has a nice terrain - the way it slopes is excellent for digging swales and water catchements. In the summer it is hotter than hell, dry as a bone, not a drop of rain. In the fall/winter it rains a LOT. Two big extremes. With California in a 40 year drought - and getting worse due to global warming climate change - we are going to utilize the natural slope of the land by digging water catchements which will collect/store rain water run-off in the natural depressions in soil where ponds will be created. The farm has a perfect natural slope to capture rainwater in the terrain’s depressions - and set up an aquaculture operation. Perhaps growing lotus root, edible aquatic plants and tilapia fish in the ponds we create?

Our goal is to run the farm the first year as an “Experimental Laboratory”. This is our first spring planting. It will take one year to assess our ability to grow full scale, commercial level production as an Urban, Organic Permaculture Farm Cooperative. We have one client who will take all our produce the first year - Richard Helmsley, the highly celebrated, visionary vegan, raw food chef who owns his thriving catering business - Synergy Chef.

After the first year of experimentation, we want to sell to the public at a local Farmers Market. I have exchanged a few emails with Lisa Nelson of Alchemist and she expressed interest in meeting with us to explore issues of common concern. Lisa told me Alchemist’s Alkali Flats Farmers Market will re-open this spring, plus they are starting two brand new Farmers Market sites opening in Sacramento fairly soon.

The five glorious acres of very pristine, virgin land appears never to have been farmed with petrochemicals. The soil is in very good shape, light and crumbly, slightly moist - which is ideal. No crabgrass - but tons of wild vetch which fixes nitrogen in the soil. Sacramento is an antidelluvial floodplain - almost completely clay soil which is hard to work with - frequently compacted and rock hard with “plowpan”. Fortunately, this land has very light clay red soil. To transmute it into loamy black soil won’t be hard. Trying to take toxic, abused farmland which has been trashed with years of corporate agribusiness farming is VERY labor intensive. Just trying to get the soil in decent condition can take many years of back-breaking work. We are grateful to have not just free land and water, but very good soil to start with. Lying fallow for decades, the land is pristine, in excellent condition. This makes it much easier to receive official organic certification from California Certified Organic Farmers.

The farm is in Elverta, near Antelope and Rio Lindo - just on the border of Sacramento County/Placer County - still within the urban grid - but far enough from the suburban residential area - to feel very much like being totally out in the country.

Our long range goal - perhaps within 2 - 3 years is to create some building structures on the farm. We need to build a produce packing/production building, farm office, residential dorms where staff and interns live. Composting toilets, biodiesel and wind power will meet our energy needs. We are gung-ho in our quest to completely avoid any petrochemical fossil fuel inputs for our energy needs. We want to utilize Permaculture Architecture, Cob Construction and Straw Bale residential dorms where interns and volunteers can live. Perhaps in a few years, LJ Urban could brainstorm with us to circumvent local government resistance to Permaculture Straw Bale and Cob architecture?

“World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms” program sets up interns with farmers who need interns. We also want to recruit local folks who want to train as Permaculturalists. Once a residential community has been established with someone living on the farm, we can have chicken coops, goats and raise rabbits for sustainable Permaculture animal husbandry.

I’m interested in learning how to raise edible insects for low-on-the-food-chain sustainable protein. Did you know 50% of the world eats edible insects? Grasshoppers are MUCH cleaner and healthier to eat than pigs, cattle and chicken. Ants lay eggs which look exactly like corn kernels - ants eat corn - so that makes sense. One of the most popular dishes in Mexico is ant eggs. It is merely rigid cultural relativism which keeps Americans from eating edible insects for protein. We could solve world hunger protein needs just from hemp foods and edible insects. With global warming accelerating, food will be scarce as agribusiness farms curl up and die from salinated, sterile compacted soil turned into solid rock and unable to sustain life. Dust Bowl type “Plowpan” is created from gasoline based anhydrous ammonia fertilizer and monocropped corporate agribusiness farming. In the near future, these crops will be so freakin’ toxic from GMO/petrochemical inputs… and Factory Farm cattle stockyards unable to function due to feedlot “burn out”. People may probably be FORCED to eat organic produce and insects for protein, or go extinct like the dinosaurs.

Whew! Now before I get too grandiose, I just wanted to let you know some of our projected plans.

I am working with visionary Adrian Comenizid, a Midtown professional Horticulturalist/Landscape Designer and fellow Permaculturalist. We have many enthusiastic volunteers who are all fired up to help us bring our vision to fruition.

Levi, Jason and Steve… I want to thank you for your openness, generosity and your willingness to be a corporate sponsor, offering free rent in your West Sac site. It meant a great deal to me you supported my idea of creating a CSA drop site/coop in your West Sac facility. However, I think that project was meant solely as a means for me to discover the far greater vision. I want to serve where the need is greatest. There is a already a plethora of thriving CSA drop sites in Sacramento and it’s environs, organic food coops in Sacramento and Davis - but a dearth of Urban, Organic Permaculture Farming Cooperatives!

So when one door closes, another opens.

I am going to attend your Open House shindig in Oak Park on Friday, Feburary 22nd at the Lofts. I am delighted to learn you are building affordable green eco-housing in an under served, inner city, blighted neighborhood. I want to thank you for your kindness in donating funds from every loft sold - to pay for the education of masons in Burkina Faso, Africa who will build sustainable, affordable housing for poverty stricken people.

Let us continue to work on issues of common concern and to redeem, restore and rejoice with the earth. Great things lie ahead!

Keep Hope Alive,

Colleen Whalen

Co-Founder
“Food for the City Farm”
Greening the Urban Grid
An Urban,Organic Permaculture Farm Cooperative
“Where the Tribe Meets and Eats”