Farming for Healthy Watersheds

A primary aim of Farms to Fishes is to show students how food production impacts the surrounding watershed. Classroom discussions cover the issues of water quality, soil erosion, biodiversity conservation, and use of chemical inputs (i.e., fertilizers and pesticides). This paints the big picture of how farmers’ decisions can aid or challenge the cause of conservation. But that picture comes to life when students visit an actual farm.

Students from Santa Cruz Montessori, Renaissance High, EA Hall Middle School, and Watsonville High had the pleasure of spending time at Live Earth Farm, a beautiful, diverse, sustainably managed farm in Santa Cruz County, California. Growing a stunning array of delicious, high-quality organic fruit and vegetables, the farm managers’ understanding of organic extends beyond avoiding synthetic chemicals. In conjunction with Wild Farm Alliance, they have recently installed a number of conservation plantings as part of an ongoing effort to incorporate elements of the wild into their farm.

While there, no one’s hands stayed clean. Students worked hard planting native shrubs and trees along the edges of crop fields, which will grow into tall hedgerows, offering food and shelter to beneficial insects that will help pollinate crops and keep pest populations in check.

Students also visited another local farm where practices are carefully planned to meet priorities of both food production and conservation. Triple M Ranch, a training and education farm of the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (or ALBA) is located next door to Elkhorn Slough, an exceptional ecosystem on the central California coast that provides a key linkage between land and sea. The slough harbors California’s largest tract of tidal salt marsh outside San Francisco Bay and is a focal point of conservation efforts in the region. Students got to meet one of the farmers and hear firsthand about his land stewardship practices. They also got to taste the sweet strawberries growing in his field!