Back to the farm: returning to our roots

You've seen them. Row after row of exposed skin, voluptuous shapes rudely displayed under fluorescent lights and periodically misted so they appear enticing, even fresh. Many of them have been taken from their mother before it was time, left to mature alone, without proper nutrition. You've seen this produce, these mounds of fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. But do you know where it comes from?

The produce we find in the supermarket travels an average of 1,500 miles to get there. Our food industry expends 19 percent of the total fossil fuel used in the United States -- about the same percent used to fuel cars. Born on large-scale commercial farms, much of this produce is the product of pesticides and preservatives, frequently packaged in non-biodegradable materials, often produced by underpaid farm workers.

But our food system is changing. The number of small organic farms practicing sustainable agriculture, like Full Circle Farm, has grown.

Right here at Santa Clara, a brand new on-campus student garden, created and maintained with an avid dedication to sustainable farming, is beginning to bloom.

Though the industrial agriculture system of today is extraordinarily productive, it is failing because of climate change, soil depletion and the waste of excess energy, according to the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at University of California, Santa Cruz. Already this year, the southwest part of Central Valley has been de-irrigated due to lack of water, and statewide our water supply is at about 60 percent of normal.

California isn't the only locale involved. In the White House, the "Eat the View" campaign aims to get a large Victory Garden planted on the front lawn to supply the first family's kitchen.

More than simply a water conservation effort, sustainable agriculture is a movement. It aims to replenish soil, forgo or reduce the use of pesticides and nonrenewable resources like fossil fuels, improve nutrition and get fair wages for farm workers. "Organic" is a term often used to describe the food it produces. In essence, sustainable agriculture combines the original farming practices of our ancestors with modern technology, bringing the farm closer to the consumer than it has been in years.

Surrounded by suburban Sunnyvale, between the New Concept Chinese School and Norman Drive, where one-story houses cower under the Santa Cruz Mountains, lies 11 acres of school district property with not a single building on it. This land is Full Circle Farm, a one-year-old who's already teaching local schoolkids about where their food comes from and the importance of farming.

As the sun sets, the student garden on the far west side of the farm is the first to fall to dusk. Neat rows of garlic and lettuce plants parallel the wire fence boundary that separates suburban from rural, where handmade signs declare the garden rules: "Always Do Your Best" and "Do Not Run."

Due northwest of the student garden is a plot of tilled soil, the beginnings of the tree orchard -- now a mere twinkle in the farmer's eye. Here, the only full-time Full Circle farmer, Meghan Cole, plans for the future. Hands on her overalled hips and braids tucked into her sun-blanched baseball cap, Cole has an honest blue-eyed gaze that seizes a listener's interest. "It's sad how it's such a preposterous idea that there could be a farm in the middle of a residential area," she says, scanning the cover crop which replenishes nutrients in the farm's soil and readies it for planting.

Full Circle is the result of the neighborhood's proposal to do something different with the Santa Clara Unified School District land that in the 1950s held a plum orchard, then athletics facilities for the former Peterson High School and finally a makeshift open space for picnics and games of catch for the next 30 years -- until now.

Six years ago, Cole learned how to grow food for herself and was astounded at the vigor she felt because of the healthy change in her diet. "I was 22 years old when I made that connection with food. Some people never make that connection," she mused. That's the goal of Full Circle Farm -- to reunite youth with the land, educating schoolchildren who eat lunch within cemented cafeteria walls so that when they grow up to be the future, they will not only know the difference between a sweet potato and a yam, but they will know how to grow them, too.

As part of the national Farm to School movement, Full Circle works with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), a statewide organization which fosters family-scale agriculture, to provide three elementary schools with monthly boxes of produce. On the farm itself, which has been funded by grants and donations, students participate in the planting, harvesting and vending of the food. Though this is the first production year, Full Circle plans to contribute 30 percent of their produce to reach all 14,000 schoolchildren in the district's cafeterias, creating salad bars with fresh greens and veggies at every school.

"You don't find big spaces of land like this except for two places: schools and churchyards," said Cole. "Hopefully this is a model for more projects that will emerge in other communities. There's definitely a need for it."

Things are going to shift, professes agroecologist Patrick Archie from his second-story office in a South Bay Victorian house, home of the Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Clara.

Beneath the office window, four-inch green sprouts rising from rich soil overlook the tear-streaked adobe buildings of the university. Miserable looking twenty-somethings trudge by in soaked sweatshirts and sloshing shoes, cursing the stormy weather, while inside, Archie blesses the much-needed rain. "Water's going to become more expensive," Archie says. "It's going to get more difficult."

As a third year of drought persists, California's water supply has significantly shrunk. Officials from the Central Valley Project, which provides most of the water for the Central Valley, the Bay Area and much of the state of California -- including 3 million acres of farmland -- announced a "zero allocation" to farmers on Feb. 20. This means that farmers who depend on this federally-rationed supply will have to look elsewhere for water this year, unless an unusual amount of rain ups that percentage. In comparison, farmers who depend on the State Water Project have been allocated 15 percent of the normal water supply, accounting for 600,000 acres of farm land.