San Diego Roots' Mission
San Diego Roots was formed to strengthen the local food movement in the San Diego region and to create a sustainable urban-rural partnership that brings healthy local food to our communities and sustains the working landscapes and people that feed us.
San Diego Roots' History
The Past
Our work began in 2001 as an unincorporated affiliation of citizens, farmers, chefs, gardeners, teachers, and students rallying together to save a small farm from losing its land to development.
The land, a mere 30-minute drive from downtown San Diego, had been put up for sale and was slated to be replaced by a housing development, a predicament for a lot of farmland in Southern California. The citizens formed a working group called A Local Organic Farmland Trust (ALOFT) and began exploring ways to buy the property.
Seeing the need for professional land trust advice and affiliation, the founding members approached the Back Country Land Trust (BCLT), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, which modified its mission statement to include the preservation of local farmland and adopted ALOFT as a project working under its non-profit umbrella.
We immediately began running public-awareness programs about the issue, including farm tours, educational lunches with fresh-picked ingredients, tabling at events and school outreach. Our intention was to purchase the land, put it into an agricultural trust, and lease it out to several small, local farmers. To further our educational goals, we wanted to create a farm education center on the property, bringing the community and school children the opportunity to learn about where their food comes from.
Despite our efforts, we were unable to buy the land, which was sold to local developers, ending over 100 years of farming and ranching on this property. This heightened our awareness of the plight of local farms and necessity of working to preserve the local-farm connection in our community.
Redoubling our efforts after this setback, in 2005 we renamed ourselves San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project (still operating as a project of BCLT), and focused on educating the public about the importance of having local farms and locally produced food, and helping people in our area find local sources for their food.
In 2004–05, our desire to learn firsthand what it takes to be a farmer brought us to create a farm on a small plot of land. In cooperation with a private landowner who offered us free use of a portion of his property, and working entirely with volunteers, we cleared the area, turned the soil, planted cover crops, installed irrigation, formed beds, amended the soil, and planted a succession of crops. Through this process we had the opportunity to work with a variety of individuals, both expert and novice, to bring several seasons of crops to fruition. Over time, the project became unsustainable as we were unable to house a farmer at the property. We learned that farming is not a commuter-friendly job.
Beginning in the spring of 2005 we established a relationship with the principal of Morse High School in Southeast San Diego (San Diego Unified School District) and began planning for an organic vegetable garden on the campus. Our first few months there involved working with a single teacher in a classroom, educating students about where their food comes from, planting seedlings, and having them do research and reports about how food relates to health issues such as childhood obesity. The students also performed a campus survey, gathering information about where local families buy their food, how much fresh food is used in cooking, how many meals are cooked in the home, about the general awareness of local farms, as well as the cultural connection to food (the school is in a mixed-race area).
In June of 2005 we hosted a fundraising dinner at a local restaurant for the school garden. Several local chefs, using mostly local ingredients, prepared a meal for over 100 guests. Part of the program included a slide show and talk given by students about the future school garden and the connection between food and health.
Using the money we raised, in the fall of 2005 we broke ground on the garden. With all volunteer help, including students from the campus, we cleared brush and landscaping from an underused portion of the campus, rototilled and amended the soil (which was nearly entirely clay), created beds and began planting. At the same time, Morse High School -- a campus of 5000 students -- began creating several small learning communities within the larger campus. One of those communities, the Terra Nova Academy, was focused on science, environmental education and health, and the school garden became part of that program. It became the Terra Nova Garden.
We hosted a second fundraising dinner in June of 2006. The funds raised at that event have helped us build a greenhouse; buy material to build raised beds; buy soil, soil amendments, fruit trees, plant starts and materials; hoses, tools, plumbing and irrigation supplies; and other materials to further advance the program.
The Present
In June of 2007, in conjunction with the San Diego Unified School District, we (under the BCLT umbrella) were awarded a $30,000 grant to create and operate an after-school program in the garden. This program called “Seeds of Leadership” (SOL), underway now, involves several eight-week sessions with six to eight students in each session. Besides working the garden, participants learn public speaking, go on field trips to local farms and gardens, grow food for one of the campus diners, and sell excess produce to the community at an on-campus stand. After their successful completion of the program, students receive a $400 scholarship.
In January of 2007, after years of searching for a piece of property, we identified a parcel suitable for our goal of operating an educational farm. This property is ideally suited for our needs: it is level, has been farmed before, has wells so we can use groundwater, is adjacent to a wildlife preserve, and is close enough to most urban schools to be a viable destination for school field trips.
We began talks with other community groups and organizations -- notably Ocean Beach People’s Organic Food Co-op and the San Diego Natural History Museum, about the advantages of creating a local, sustainable educational farm for our region. The Co-op has a long history of supporting organic agriculture in general and school-to-farm field trips in particular, so they were a natural partner in the project. The Museum is helping focus community awareness about global climate change and immediately saw the connection between food sources and climate.
Several talks within the community about the project helped us gather together a dynamic group of people willing to work as volunteers to make this happen. We started meeting weekly to map out a strategy and began making plans for a fundraising campaign to buy the land. Realizing the necessity to make decisions quickly and act on our own, in August of 2007 we began the process of organizing as our own non-profit organization. On November 15, 2007, we were incorporated as a California Public Benefit Corporation.
Currently, we continue to speak to community groups about the project, are raising funds (still processed by BCLT until we receive 501(c)3 status), tabling at events and are helping host community gatherings about farms, food, social justice and health.
The Future
The future of the organization involves many of the same elements, but at a much greater scale. Once we gain our 501(c)3 status, we will host more fundraising dinners, activities and events to promote local food issues, educate the public about where their food comes from, and establish a farm/education center of our own. Once we reach agreement with a landowner, we will host events there and begin in earnest to build a farm and facility on that property.
Our farm -- called Willow Glen Farm -- will be a local, organic, educational farm. It will support ecologically sustainable agriculture, offer community members the opportunity to connect with food sources and learn how to grow their own food, and promote personal well-being. Our vision is -- through donations and grants -- to buy the land and place it under a permanent agricultural/wildlife easement, preserving it as farm and wildlife habitat forever.
At the farm, we will operate weekend workshops for the community in gardening, composting, cooking, vermiculture, beekeeping, fruit trees, seminars on food and health, natural pest control, organic soil amending, animal husbandry and more.
Because the farm will be within a 30-minute bus ride from most urban schools, we will implement a field-trip program with city and county school districts that bring local school kids to the farm to learn about where their food comes from. We will encourage them to start gardens at their own schools and help provide resources and volunteers to make that possible. We will also educate students and their parents about the relationship between food and health.
Further down the road, our goal is to establish a college-accredited course with a local community college offering certification in organic, sustainable farm practices. Course work would include plant propagation, organic soil science, wild farming, seed banking, water-saving irrigation practices, bio-intensive farm practices and gardening with native plants.
Beginning in 2009 we plan to establish an annual seminar on food and farming, and bring speakers, farmers, chefs, educators, economists, political leaders, authors, artists, students and citizens together to discuss the importance of keeping a vibrant, local, sustainable and delicious food system in the San Diego region.
This is one of the best growing climates in the world, and we are learning and teaching ways to better take advantage of it for all who live here now and future generations.
