The San Francisco Standard
June 28, 2023
Chances are Janet Brown and Marty Jacobson know more about heirloom tomatoes than you do. The husband-and-wife team behind Allstar Organics has been growing the vibrantly colored nightshade fruit in the unincorporated Marin County community of Nicasio for 30 years—long before heirloom tomatoes became common in this country.
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North Bay Business Journal
June 23, 2023
Despite coming off a disastrous winter that cost California about $1 billion in damage, North Bay farmers and ranchers may have paid a heftier price from the last few years of drought — with almost a dozen in Sonoma and Marin counties throwing in the towel.
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The San Francisco Standard
April 29, 2023
Imagine the Bay reduced to a trickle of water, Glen Canyon filled with ribbons of concrete highway, Mt. Davidson covered with private homes and closed to the public. It can be easy to take the awe-inducing natural beauty of the Bay Area for granted, presuming it will always be there: the sparkly waters of the…
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Marin IJ
April 26, 2023
I’m lucky. My job as the director of a community-based land trust gives me the opportunity to stand on top of some of the tallest mountains in Marin and to take in breathtaking vistas – rolling farmland, protected forests, the baylands and the wild Pacific Ocean.
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Marin IJ
April 7, 2023
The Novato Garden Club will once again offer its long-running annual Spring Bloom Sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 15 at two Novato locations, 7 Estates Drive and 6 Equestrian Court. The sale will feature a variety of annuals, perennials and shrubs such as roses, small orchids, fuchsia, hydrangeas, lavender, aloe and seeds;…
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Capital Press
March 30, 2023
They strut, scratch and mingle knowing they won’t be cooped up as they produce eggs for her. “I grew up in agriculture and raised cattle and hogs in my youth and active in 4-H and FFA,” she said. “I began operating my organic pasture raised egg farm in 2011.”
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Capital Press
March 23, 2023
The marine fog that rolls across Marin County, Calif., north of San Francisco, relieves drought, even on days when no rain falls. Moisture collects on the roofs of the barns at Jessica and Neil McIsaac’s dairy and trickles into gutters and two 5,000-gallon tanks. Pumps then push the water through pipes from the tanks to…
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Petaluma Argus-Courier
March 22, 2023
Few families have had as great an impact on our modern coastal lands as the Straus family. Ellen and Bill Straus fled Nazi Europe during WWII and settled in Marshall, on the Tomales Bay, to begin a life of ranching. Along the way, Ellen and Bill were at the heart of the effort to save West…
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Wall Street Journal
March 9, 2023
PETALUMA, Calif.—Neil McIsaac has something many other dairy farmers here don’t: a storm-runoff capture system that can provide backup water for his herd when local reservoirs go dry, as they did last year. Already, he and others involved in the project say it has proven its worth. It has captured 670,000 gallons so far this winter,…
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Marin IJ
February 22, 2023
In Marin County, ranchers and farmers are on the frontline of climate change – extreme cycles of dry and wet, famine and feast. While it’s easier to talk about the problems from the recent storms, the real work is in doubling down on how we build resilience and adapt to a changing climate by investing…
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