June 2024 Note from Laney + Ryan
As we celebrate the summer solstice, it’s time to take a deep breath and reflect back on all that the first half of the year has held. It’s been a busy spring at Climate Farm School! After two California courses in April, we packed our bags and headed to Europe for two weeks of teaching in Spain and Italy– an inspiring, and formative experience for us and CFS.
During our first week, we were teaching a course with Regeneration Academy at La Junquera in Spain. It was a great opportunity to partner with another leader in regen ag education and compare notes, teach together, and live on a farm in one of the driest places we’ve ever seen producing food (30 cm / year rainfall on average). It hasn’t rained there since last June, and yet the 1100 hectare farm is alive, biodiverse, and demonstrating resilience and dedication to ecosystem restoration plus agricultural productivity. We were blown away, and now we know who to call if we break the water cycle in California in a similar way to this parched region of the Southern Spain altiplano. Thank goodness there are people like Yanniek and Alfonso and their team helping to bring things back to life on the land.
Cereal grain fields at La Junquera in Murcia, Spain.
Our second week, in Italy, was quite different. We drove through lush green Tuscan hillsides on the way to Spannocchia. It rained and thunderstormed, making it difficult to plant summer vegetables into the heavy clay soils during the course, necessitating some scheduling adjustments to allow the fields to dry early in the week. We led a soil health workshop, foraged for a cooking class, and learned about the heritage breed pigs and cattle of Tuscany perfectly suited to this Mediterranean region of field and forest (Cinta Senese pigs at Spannocchia and Maremma cattle at Tenuta Di Paganico). We finally did get to plant veggies with Yago and the Spannocchia interns after the rains stopped. Surrounded by an incredible group of participants in both courses from all over the US and Europe, we left feeling sincere gratitude for all who embark on a learning journey about regenerative agriculture, and for the opportunity to build community with farmers, impact investors, ecologists, and other professionals looking to marry their skillsets to the cause. Our alumni network is getting stronger by the day, y’all. It was extremely informative to connect across regions with similar climates but different social and political contexts (Murcia, Spain - Central Valley; Tuscany - Sonoma County) and share experiences.
Jacopo at Tenuta di Paganico leads CFS participants through pastures grazed by Maremmana cattle.
Back in CA, we’ve sustained the fast-paced springtime energy as best we can, hosting a one-day workshop for SFUSD’s Student Nutrition Services team just 2 days before launching into the June course week here at Green Valley Farm + Mill. We visited a few new farms in the area (Yagi Sisters Farm and Preston Farm and Winery), and were joined by a reporter and photographer from Sonoma Magazine who are working on a story about CFS for an upcoming sustainability-focused issue.
We’ve had promising calls with fundraising partners, and amazing support from alumni volunteers who are helping us with everything from operations and software to strategic partnerships and social media. We are also working with one of our former professors from UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and a summer intern to to create an offering for medical professionals through which they can earn continuing education units (CEUs). We are full of excitement, brimming with possibility, and incredibly grateful for all of you who form our community of food systems changemakers. Thank you for taking the time to read this and keep in touch in this busy transition year!
