There was a time when Sacramento didn’t want to be an ag town. It has been nearly 20 years since the idea for Soil Born Farms was planted. Agriculture, as it has since the 1840’s, was booming in the Sacramento Valley. There were some early voices singing the virtues of our agricultural heritage to the growing population of city slickers back then.

Leadership at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op and Harald Hoven, the master gardener at Fair Oaks’ Rudolf Steiner College were raising consciousness on the value of urban gardens. And community garden advocates such as Sacramento’s Bill Maynard, the leadership at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center and Mary Kimball at the nonprofit Center for Land Based Learning were spreading the gospel.

But not much of the “culture” of our agriculture was seeping into the rapidly expanding urban environment of Sacramento. In fact, it seemed there was a push regionally to shake off our “cow town” identity…

Written by Shawn Harrison and Patrick Mulvaney — Special to The Bee

There was a time when Sacramento didn’t want to be an ag town. My, how we have grown.
Originally published by The Sacramento Bee
Read the full story here: sacbee.com