The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for new ideas on how people access food. Many years ago, Sheena Vaidyanathan, a recently retired middle school teacher, had started a backyard garden, harvesting fresh food for her family. In 2020, it was fresh, local food that connected her with friends and neighbors, ultimately resulting in Tera Farm, a nonprofit enabling small-scale farmers to sell organic produce directly to neighborhoods. The idea started with Sheena creating an online store for local produce, and reaching out to people who were intent on paying retail prices directly to farmers who had previously sold at wholesale prices. In this edited interview with Sheena we asked about her unpredictable journey.
Why did you get involved in local agriculture and sustainable food systems?
I would say that it was a series of fortunate events. I ended up acquiring land in San Juan Batista and decided to work on planting an orchard because a lot of orchards are disappearing in that area… and that was my deep dive into the world of agriculture.
I was lucky to meet enough people to help me understand that I need to start by planting a cover crop and building up the soil and what it means to be organic. I decided to lease out some of the land I had acquired to farmers, and had a whole ecosystem of people that I could learn from.
How have you been able to provide land access for small-scale farmers?
Basically when I started, I was only going to experiment on a small portion with my orchard, instead of giving it out to one farmer that would take the land. I was fortunate that I had met some people, including David Mancera [formerly] with Kitchen Table Advisors, and he introduced me to small farmers. He took me to ALBA and made me aware that there were these farmers who would need land, and because they were smaller family farmers, they would need smaller parcels. [READ MORE] I got this idea that instead of leasing it to one person, I was going to connect with the people that I had met. That's how I decided to divide the land into five-acre parcels and provide access to farmers who were not only graduates of ALBA, but also clients of Kitchen Table Advisors. There was a community of support that I had going in.
And how did California FarmLink get involved?
I had the perfect three prongs that were coming together. There was ALBA, and I was talking to them about how they maintain logs to share the water at the well, and more; and the farmers themselves knew each other, which was wonderful. Kitchen Table Advisors was supporting the small farmers. At that time, I spoke almost no Spanish so it was helpful to get language support, too. FarmLink was critical because they helped me set up the leases, and it was wonderful to see how they were very much advocating and talking from the farmer's point of view, but also being very mindful and advising me, as somebody new to this, on what I should be looking for and what should be in the lease. I would not have been able to do it without FarmLink.
Today you lease 40 acres to seven farmers, which includes a couple of subleases. What drives you to partner with those small farmers?
I would say they inspire me every day in how they work, how they face challenges, and how much they're able to get done with sometimes so little and in such an innovative way that I would not have thought possible. Every time I am with them, I can learn from them, it just drives me further, to [ask] what else can I do? What else can I do myself as a farmer? What else can I do in any indirect way to support them? So I think that's what drives me…the small farmers.
Now that you've established land access for the farmers, what learnings will you take forward?
Oh my gosh, what can I say? Farming is not easy. That's the first thing I've learned. It's even more challenging than I had ever thought, and sometimes it makes me wonder why we do it, and it also makes me worry because so few of us know how to grow our own food. I think the learning I get from that is how much more there is to learn. And as I learn more, I'm thinking: We really need to get everybody involved. You can't grow [all] your food, I understand, but at least learn where it comes from. And therefore, support it. Do your part. Go in and support FarmLink, ALBA, Kitchen Table Advisors and other nonprofits. Buy locally from your local farmer. If you can't grow your food, at least do your part to make sure the people who are growing our food are still there.
Tell us about Tera Farm, the nonprofit farm box service, and its purposes.
As I got involved with all these small farmers, I was seeing what they were growing, and that's when the March 2020 [shutdown] happened. And I found out that one of the small farmers couldn't sell his produce. Schools, restaurants, and wholesalers weren't buying as much. And I still remember I had a picture on my phone from seeing that harvest the day before and I'm like, “You mean all that wonderful kale is not going to get used?” So I ended up with this idea: Let me at least get two boxes from him, just buy some kale and hand it off to my friends. So I texted a bunch of my friends saying, "Hey, due to COVID…I'm going to drop it off. Would you like some kale?" And they responded, "Yeah, because I'm not going to the grocery store, but I just don't want it free. I want to pay that person." So I said, "Okay, put some money in an envelope and I'm not going to touch your money. I'm going to pick this up and send it back to the farmer." And they said, "I can't eat this much kale, but I'll tell my neighbors."
Basically I dropped it off to four or five friends and then they contacted their four or five friends. It was crazy because everybody was freaking out about things shutting down, my phone was just filled with messages saying, "Where did this kale come from? I've never seen something so fresh. And look at what I made, and here is this new recipe from The New York Times that you can use," and then, "Can I please get some more kale, and do you have anything besides kale?"
So I started sending those messages back through Kitchen Table Advisors, back to the farmer, and he's like, "I've never actually sold anything except to wholesale. I've never met a person who's actually used my product. And by the way, I do have celery and onions and chard." And so before I knew it, I was managing a lot of messages from people asking for different amounts of different vegetables. This is when I realized that I would have to set up an online store to make this work.
Can you share more about the beginnings of Tera Farm?
Going back to that whole idea that I put money in an envelope, I said, "I want to do it as a nonprofit so that the money never, ever touches me, it just goes straight to the farmer.” Not only was [the farmer] getting more money, he was getting cash on the spot, not six weeks later when the wholesaler closed the invoice.
Basically it was providing market access, and along the way, as things started opening up, we also started creating opportunities for people to visit the farm. "Where do all these boxes come from? Who are these farmers who are creating our farm boxes? Who is Bertha Magaña? Who is Mariana Reyes?" I had started communicating with newsletters, short emails, telling them, "The store is open, come and buy," because there's no subscription. They get to decide each week if they want to order or not. So I have to sell them a message every time. I started creating these little stories: Did you know how farmers work together, mother and daughter collaborating on the farm, what happened in the heat wave, or what happened with the rains this week. Basically market access and education were the two key parts of Tera Farm when it started.
Tera Farm has been operating for almost five years, what does its future look like?
I started out in technology, which goes back to why I was able to set up an online store…and why I want to see what else we can do in terms of technology. And then 18 years ago I got into education. Working with middle school in particular has been my passion. Education is both the learning and the teaching.
With Tera Farm, I want to do more in terms of education. I think everybody should be involved with the food that we eat. We had an extremely successful pilot school visit last fall. We had two busloads of school kids, fifth graders…with teachers and parents, like a hundred people out on the farm. They were reading this book, Esperanza Rising, about a young girl who moves from Mexico to work on farms. We asked, where does their food come from and who grows their food? They met farmers who are from Mexico. The farmers talked about how their families have been involved. It was not just how food is grown, but who grows our food.
Recently, David Mancera who was on the Tera Farm board from the start has brought in his own initiative La Cultiva into the Tera Farm nonprofit and taken on the CEO position. He and I are working closely on expanding Tera Farm to support farmers with two distinct but connected approaches: For the consumers, access to local organic produce and education about the food we eat; and for the farmers, market access, and now land and capital access to grow and sustain their farm businesses.
To learn more about Tera Farm, and its delivery services from Berkeley to Carmel, visit the organization's website here.
