Welcome!
Baby Root Farm sits on a half acre in Camarillo, California at the historic McGrath Family Ranch. We grow mini sized roots, shoots, fruits, lots of California native plants, and we have giant aspirations to grow the next generation of farmers. We share this land cooperatively with many other farms of all sizes and styles; we all share common ideas and a vision to work together to help improve our food systems.
Beginnings
Baby Root Farm was born out of experience of frustration with traditional organic farming. We would invest long hours and long days where it felt like the harder we worked the more we struggled. Always overwhelmed with weed and pest pressure and economically we just couldn't seem to keep our heads above water. This was a challenging time. More and more we were hearing from soil and environmental scientists that all current forms of agriculture were inherently degenerative in nature, or degrading to our environment. Even organic farming, with all our struggles, we were now being told that tilling up our ground was destroying soil structure, micro biology, and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. We were being told that our organic pesticides made from soaps and oils were not only smothering pests but they were killing beneficial insects as well.
As farmers we've always known that we are necessarily intervening into our natural systems in order to feed a growing population, but we wondered, is there a way to move towards a system of food production that is inherently regenerative in nature?
Mission
Working along side all our current farmers, honoring all of our past farmers, we are aiming towards a system of agriculture in which the more food we produce, the measurably better we become environmentally. A few examples would be measuring our carbon sequestration, the organic matter in our soil, and measuring the biodiversity on our farm.
We're aiming towards a system of agriculture in which the more food we produce the measurably better we become socially. Our farmers experience a consistently improved quality of life, are valued leaders and their community, and are able to earn a comfortable living and invest toward their retirement.
We're aiming towards a system of agriculture in which the more food we produce the measurably better we become economically. We ensure that we are not being wasteful with our spending and that we are offering appropriately priced products and services to our community.
We also hold ourselves to a fourth standard, to always improve educationally, to always be learning, and to teach these principles to the next generation of regenerative farmers.
Growing more farmers
200 years ago, 90% of our population were farmers, today we're told that that number is 1%. 1% of our population feeding the other 99%. This is a true testament to the incredible ingenuity and technological advances of our current farmers, however this has also created a huge disconnect between the consumer and how their food is produced. So, right along side this mass production we can also begin moving towards developing more farmers and production coming from the masses.
Regenerative agriculture is a simple, inclusive, non-adversarial way to realign ourselves with nature starting with the reality of where we are now - with the current systems, tools, and capabilities we have to work with and moving forward together.
Keep in Touch!
Our site is currently under construction. We would love for you to keep in touch with us as our farm continues to develop! Please sign up on our email list to receive future announcements on things like educational workshops, volunteering opportunities, tours, events, where we sell our produce, and days we will be opening our farm to everyone to enjoy and learn about.