The Bee awarded money to local climate efforts. Here’s how the agriculture project shaped up

Farmers, scientists and experts gathered on Sunday at Sacramento State to talk about how to innovate farming in ways that promote the health of humans and soil.

350 Sacramento hosted a free community forum on regenerative agriculture, which is an approach to land management that seeks to “leave our land, waters, and climate in better shape for future generations,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

This gathering was made possible with the support of several organizations, including The Sacramento Bee.

The Sacramento-based nonprofit was one of three organizations that won a $5,000 grant from The Bee in 2023, as a part of the Solutions Journalism Network’s Beacon Initiative to address climate change.

The event featured speakers from SMUD, the Climate Center, Chico State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It also presented panels with farmers sharing their experience with regenerative farming and segments focusing on community-scale composting, soil health principles and funding and resources.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that helps restore soil and the health of an ecosystem, according to NRDC. It also includes addressing inequality and nurturing resources for the future.

Associated techniques include no-till farming (leaving soil intact rather than plowing), composting, cover cropping (planting crops, rather than leaving soil bare, in between harvests) and holistically managed grazing, according to the NRDC.

Essentially, it entails a variety of principles that address improving soil and water quality, as well as work conditions, said Stuart Burke-Jones of Soil Born Farms.

Based in Rancho Cordova, Soil Born Farms practices this form of farming with techniques such as cover cropping and minimizing tillage. Soil Born Farms founder Shawn Harrison was also at the forum and held a Q&A about his experience.

Work on sustainable farming at state, local level

Among local farmers and other individuals interested in regenerative agriculture at the event were booths from SMUD, the California Alliance of Community Composting and Third Act Sacramento, a group focused on stabilizing the climate.

“I just wanted to be more in the know with the regenerative ag community,” said Burke-Jones, who’s been with Soil Born Farms for about a year but has been an urban farmer for the past eight years.

From the forum, Burke-Jones said he learned how involved the legislature is in pushing sustainable farming forward.

“They can see that farming isn’t only a source of issues, but can be a source of solutions,” he said.

A legislation that involves promoting sustainable farming is the Farm Bill, which is a package of laws that gets passed about every five years.

Toney Tillman, a district conservationist for the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, presented a segment about farm funding via the Farm Bill.

“With the money that NRCS receives, we are able to work with farmers, help create that conservation plan to address the different issues relating to climate, agricultural practices, air quality, water quality, soil health... To help make those improvements that they may not be able to on their own, independently,” Tillman said.

Cheyenne and Scott Toich said they saw a social media post about the forum in a local agriculture group.

“We are really interested in regenerative agriculture,” Cheyenne said. “We just got a little bit of land and we’re trying to build our gardens and farm the best way we can.”

The Grass Valley couple said they are in the process of learning how to get started.

Scott said it’s inspirational to see other farmers who have successfully implemented regenerative agriculture — the same path they plan to take for their farm.

“The hardest thing for me to wrap my head around so far is how to go from a system that doesn’t promote soil health,” Cheyenne said. “How do we start?”

From Harrison’s panel for Soil Born Farms, Scott said he learned that, as a farm, they had to work toward other goals.

“That — to me — was kind of eye-opening too,” Scott said. “You don’t have to start off this way, but you can kind of work into different parts of it as you’re able to.”

Why 350 Sacramento focused on regenerative agriculture

The desire to share knowledge was the impetus for organizing the forum.

“I proposed this forum because it is such a hopeful, powerful and relatively unknown climate solution,” said Goli Sahba, a family physician in Sacramento and volunteer of 350 Sacramento, “particularly for the Sacramento‘s agricultural region, it seemed the perfect solution.”

The forum emphasizes how regenerative agriculture can help with climate change.

“Even if we were able to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions tomorrow from this planet, the carbon that has already been emitted since the industrial revolution has to be sequestered back in the ground,” Sahba said in an email to The Bee.

Regenerative agriculture, also known as carbon farming, entails a set of practices that can help cut carbon but also allow for water conservation, topsoil preservation and reduce air pollution, she said.

What went into organizing the forum

To organize the forum, Project Manager Katie McCammon said 350 Sacramento had to conduct weekly meetings since the end of January and spent time conducting outreach to farmers and speakers.

All of which ranged from 20 to 60 hours. Additional hours were dedicated to designing posters and social media campaigns and organizing speakers for the forum.

As of a few days prior to the forum, Sahba said the organization reached its goal of 100 registered forum attendees — excluding volunteers, presenters and sponsors.

In total, Sahba said 350 Sacramento spent $6,500 for the forum, with the funds going towards the venue, honoraria for speakers, technical fees for the presentations, and food and beverages.

“Our team conducted targeted outreach to the farming community and specifically to non-urban, large-scale farmers,” McCammon said. “We hope that larger-scale farmers who aren’t using regenerative methods come to the event and are inspired by what they learn to switch to regenerative practices.”

For farmers attending the forum, McCammon said they are connecting them to USDA funding sources to better understand the financial benefits of these techniques.

Challenges so far for 350 Sacramento

There have been limitations to what the organizers were able to achieve with the forum, Sahba said.

This includes not having a panel of city, county and school districts to inform the public about how they can be a part of decision-making and policy change, she said.

The organization also prioritized farmer outreach over the general public, therefore, Sahba said she didn’t, as of April 24, know the ratio of attendees.

However, future forums can address these limitations, she added.

Overall, for regenerative agriculture to prevail, non-farmers and elected officials need to stop new fossil fuel projects and reduce emissions, she said.

What’s next

There were some unexpected lessons in organizing the Sunday forum.

Sahba said she didn’t anticipate the restrictions and fees that Sacramento State charges for nonprofit events.

“If we are to host more events like this we need to expand our staff capacity at 350 Sacramento and we need to coordinate larger funding sources,” McCammon added. “Our team is very inspired and excited about this forum, but doing this work has stalled some of the other important work happening at 350 Sacramento.”

In the future, the organization plans to have a team with paid employees who will focus on event organizing, she said.