When Paul Bulware resigned from his non-profit business in Yolo County and opted for self-employment, he registered for a co-worker position. But it was not just any workplace.
As of January, the Bulware Land Education Center is one of five farmers renting a new 30-hectare Woodland farm. It has about $ 750 a year to rent land and infrastructure, as well as $ 50 to $ 100 a month for various expenses such as water, bulwark salad, carrots, beans, radishes, tomatoes, zucchini and all its own half-hectare farm. Different types of greens.
Buller, his wife, Kyle, and their two young children are now out of savings, and there is hope for the future. “Crop forecasts show that I can live on less than half a hectare of land.” The way I planted it and the crops I chose allowed me to work somewhere for $ 75,000 a year.
Paul Bulware is one of five farmers who rent a 30-hectare Woodland farm. (Photo by Graham Walk)
To begin with, he is the kind of person who is willing to buy hundreds of hectares of land to help young farmers who do not have the means to do so. The project is part of the center’s extensive work to make agriculture accessible to the underprivileged population.
Bulware arrived at Woodland in May 2020 and arrived at the center. The effort was based 19 years ago near Winter, in Komstok (west of Sacramento, a road for urban farmers). .
“For some reason we just finished the class,” says Mary Kimball, the center’s chief executive. A.D. When we first moved in 2001 and about five years ago, we had a small 1924 craftsman’s house that we used as an office, as long as the space was good. But we were growing a lot… and so we literally lost space for our staff.
The farm, now a land-based educational center, was established in the 1870’s. (Photo courtesy of Fred Graves, Center for Earth-Based Education)
So the center “moved to a beautiful, historic Yolo County farm that has been around since the 1870s,” says Kimball, who built a new, 5,400-square-foot, state headquarters. The farm also provides space for the equator program, which is part of the bulwark. Participants in the program can rent up to five hectares of land, receive technical assistance and use it as a washing and packaging facility and a storage facility for vegetables.
In addition, there is some assistance in labor. Twenty students from Grant Union and Lutheran Berbank High Schools in Sacramento have been working at the center this summer under Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s “Thousand Strong” program.
Bulwark says eight Grant students practice for him twice a week, helping to plant, plant and plant seeds for washing, washing and packing seeds. “Basically, they jump into the weekly rhythm,” says Bulware.
The center operates five urban farms in western Sacramento, which began seven years ago. This summer, the West Sacramento Mobile Farmers’ Market, which takes produce from farmers and is sold to the public in a high-rise residential facility and park in that city, has opened.
Woodland currently has 5,400 square feet of land-based education center, with headquarters throughout the country. (Photo courtesy of Fred Graves, Center for Earth-Based Education)
Kimball: What the new farmers can do through the center’s Woodland farm is a reality. “They are really trying,” says Kimbal. They are going. ”
But the bulwark already sees value in other farmers’ companies. “The center has really created a community of farmers. I think it’s a great opportunity to connect with other farmers to solve that problem, to anticipate marketing opportunities and learn from it,” he said. “The crowd really did what the center did.
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