Tag archives: farm

White Buffalo Land Trust Five Years of Regenerative Farming for Today… and the Future
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 7, 2023

White Buffalo Land Trust (WBLT) is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, a journey that began in 2018 with a small, 12-acre flagship farm in Summerland that was among the pioneers of bringing regenerative agriculture to the South Coast. The system of farming principles and practices that rehabilitates the land by focusing on biodiversity, soil […]

White Buffalo Land Trust
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 5, 2023

An art show at a downtown Santa Barbara gallery might seem to have little to do with a nonprofit working with systems of regenerative agriculture. As it turns out, though, one of the series in Holli Harmon’s To Feast on Clouds exhibit on display at Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery through September 25 is […]

White Buffalo Land Trust
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 27, 2022

Regenerative agriculture has the potential to provide meaningful work and living wages to farmers while feeding millions of people, sequestering large amounts of atmospheric carbon into the soil, building our freshwater resources, and improving wildlife habitat. Despite launching its tiny, 12-acre farm as a proving ground and site for community demonstration, learning, and teaching about […]

Summerland Farm Prevails
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   November 16, 2021

Escrow closed earlier this week on a 6.84-acre property at the top of Temple Street in Summerland; the property has been the subject of much community discussion over the years, as its fate was uncertain until about two months ago, when the Carpinteria/Summerland Unified School District, which has owned the property since 1955, accepted a […]

Can Summerland’s Sweet Wheel Farm & Flowers Raise Enough Cash to Purchase Plot From School District?
By Nick Schou   |   June 24, 2021

For the past year, Leslie Person Ryan has been leasing a six-acre plot of land in Summerland from the Carpinteria Unified School District (CUSD). At her nascent farm located on a grassy hilltop with stunning mountain and ocean views, Ryan, the owner of Sweet Wheel Farm & Flowers, who owns additional agricultural acreage in Orcutt, […]

Leading the Way in Specialty Coffee
By Richard Mineards   |   February 4, 2021

Agronomist and farmer Jay Ruskey, co-founder of Frinj Coffee, situated on 42 acres at his family-owned and operated Good Land Organics Farm in Goleta, is trying to make the humble bean into a premium brand worthy of adjectives more associated with wine. Carved out of a 120-acre property formerly owned by Alfred and Betsy Bloomingdale […]

Farm to Cart – Fresh Food and No Long Lines
By Claudia Schou   |   August 27, 2020

Local food activist and Sweet Wheel Farm & Flowers owner Leslie Person Ryan is on a mission to solve the “food desert” of Summerland. The think-outside-the-box purveyor of all things grown from the earth offers fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs, baked goods, wildflowers, and specialty foods made with ingredients from her garden. Person Ryan operates two […]

The Heart of Dankness
By Nick Schou   |   March 12, 2020

A long–simmering conflict over cannabis odor and pesticide use continues in Carpinteria Smell, What Smell? On a recent afternoon, Hans Brand steers his electric golf cart-type vehicle from the main office of his Carpinteria cannabis farm to a sprawling greenhouse that seems big enough to fit a football field inside it. Inside the structure, at […]

Laguna Blanca Girl Scout Wins Award
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   April 11, 2019

Local Girl Scout and Laguna Blanca High School student Natalie McCaffery has received the highest Girl Scout honors, winning a Gold Award for her extensive Smart Farm program that she implemented at Laguna Blanca.  Naturally drawn to the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Music), Natalie recognized the lack of healthy food choices among […]