Supporting sustainable agriculture in the Jacoby Creek watershed is a major tenet of the trust’s mission.  Access to local meat, vegetables, and fruit grown without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial agents strengthens food security in our community and demonstrates the value of working lands as part of a sound land conservation strategy.  The Jacoby Creek valley has a rich agricultural history that JCLT continues today by providing pasture for livestock and partnering with local farmers at Kokte Ranch and in the watershed.  

 

Caudal Fin Farms, an active CSA farm, grows at our beautiful Kokte Ranch, and honeybees raised by @herbsandartbyami pollinate food and flowers on the farm as well as native plants throughout the watershed.  On the first Saturday of each month, JCLT offers grass-fed and finished beef raised at Kokte Ranch.  Proceeds from these sales fund the trust’s conservation projects.  

 

Beyond Kokte Ranch we further the goal of community-supported and sustainable agriculture through agriculture easements, such as the one with our friends and partners at Redwood Roots Farm, donated by Bill and June Thompson as the trust’s first easement in 1992. 

 

In dedicating the easement, Mr. Thompson set forth this vision for the trust,  “our ultimate dream, which will come about only if enough people share it, would be to preserve the rural and open character of Jacoby Creek Valley, to protect a riparian corridor along Jacoby Creek, and to bring back the native fish population. This is a well-loved and amazingly intact little coastal valley. It is unique to have such a rural and agriculturally productive area so close to a town and to a university.” 

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