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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Marin IJ
January 20, 2023
These past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time on ranches and farms across Marin County. Without a doubt, water is on everyone’s mind, but not exactly in the way most of us might be thinking. With the recent extreme storm events, our community has been inundated with flooding, persistent power outages and even…
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Bay Nature
January 19, 2023
The Marin County conservationist passed away on January 15, at her home. This article was first published on Nov. 23, 2015. Veteran environmental activist, writer, editor, publisher, educator, and coastal wetlands scientist Phyllis Faber has made countless contributions to the Bay Area environmental movement. With the late Ellen Straus, she cofounded the nation’s first agricultural…
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Marin Independent Journal
January 18, 2023
The Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership has announced the recipients of its annual Heart of Marin Award. The award program, which is in its 30th year, honors nonprofit volunteers, leaders and organizations. The awards ceremony was held Jan. 12 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. The honorees and their award categories included: The…
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Point Reyes Light
January 18, 2023
With their bright array of yellows, pinks and purples, the thistles rapidly propagating in Marin County are lovely to look at. But to ranchers in need of healthy grasslands for their cattle, they are a menace. The county is teaming up with the Marin Agricultural Land Trust to help Chileno Valley ranchers get rid
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San Francisco Chronicle
October 21, 2022
When Vivien Straus was growing up in West Marin, the newspaper would come a day or two late. The family mail wasn’t addressed with a street, just the town of Marshall and the state. With limited water on the property, which overlooks Tomales Bay and Highway 1, each of the family’s four children had to…
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