Food Security United States Project #9956

Growing Healthy Families

by Hidden Villa

Project Report | Oct 8, 2014
Fresh, Healthy Food for Our Communtiy

By Sofia Pablo | Development Coordinator

9 Varities of Heritage Tomatoes!

As the season changes around here at Hidden Villa, we look back at the harvest that we were able to produce for our community. This season we donated 3,928 pounds to the Community Services Agency of Mountain View, a partnership that we are proud to continue. For over 50 years, Community Services Agency has been providing vital social services for residents of Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. They provide a safety net so independence and self-sufficiency can be restored and maintained. Clients may be a young, working poor family or an elderly person looking for companionship.

It has been a challenging season throughout California for farmers and farm workers. The drought has greatly impacted our ability to grow food. We have been conscious of our water usage and are always exploring ways to be more water-wise. We are excited to have been able to, in the face of a drought, continue to provide fresh produce to our low-income neighbors. LaDrea Clark, the Nutrition and Health Education Assistant, passed on this message to us about our partnership. "I know that clients love, love, love the fresh produce. We have the busiest days when they know we have fresh produce. The clients definitely come on produce days. Thank you all for everything that you do and all the beautiful fresh pesticide free produce."

We are so grateful for your support in helping us offer fresh, healthy, local food to our community members and neighbors.

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Jul 7, 2014
How Our Farmers are Responding to Changes

By Jason McKenney | Farm Manager

Pattypan Squash!

The most successful growing strategies and the best farming practices are ones that are adaptable. As much as an engineering mindset can project into scaling up operations to larger sizes with greater assumptions of efficiency, the reality of agriculture is that we are producing food in a dynamic and ever-changing environment that will never conform to a single, uniform, repeatable method for very long. I feel grateful for practicing a kind of farming that does not rely too heavily on assumptions about weather and climate, pest control, and disease problems. Invariably things change and the assumptions lead to enormous crop losses.

Here we are in the midst of a very serious drought and we have ever-increasing evidence that our climate is in the process of changing into a hotter, drier and less predictable one. While the predictions about the effects upon agriculture are stark I would like to suggest that our choices to buy and support smaller-scale, localized organic food are both an antidote to CO2 intensive conventional agriculture and the exact kind of methods most capable of weathering the coming changes.

Small-scale farming involves growing methods that require minimal initial investment, have a planting model that uses a more resilient diversity of crop varieties, and because of their small size are capable of making decisions and changes that turn the production on a dime into something more appropriate. Small-scale organic farms typically rely upon cover crops for generating fertility and this practice yields a CO2 sequestering solar powered base of nutrients. This combined with less energy intensive packing, storage and distribution systems make this kind of farming the greenest way to eat.

As a small farm operating for our local community and neighbors that frequent the Community Services Agency of Mountain View, we are thankful for your continued support.

Farm Crew in the Fields

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Apr 7, 2014
Spring is in the Air

By Sofia Pablo-Hoshino | Development Coordinator

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