“Environmental nonprofit White Buffalo Land Trust acquired a 1,000-acre ranch in Santa Barbara that it will use to create a research and education center focused on regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative agriculture focuses on improving, rather than simply sustaining, agricultural land.
That in turn regenerates topsoil, captures carbon, increases biodiversity, and improves water cycles, according to White Buffalo.
Regenerative agriculture was the idea behind White Buffalo’s $6 million purchase of Jamala Canyon Ranch in Santa Barbara.
The ranch will be the home of a center that the organization calls “a hub for education, training, research and enterprise development.”
Jesse Smith, White Buffalo’s director of land stewardship, said the center will provide things like workshops, technical training and apprenticeship programs for aspiring land stewards.
“So the center specifically will host workshops and courses and field days. We will be modeling different cropping systems and livestock management systems that are appropriate for the climate context and culture of this place, and we will be engaging with ongoing research, collaboration with institutions of higher education and research partners,” Smith said.
Eventually, Smith said, the center will also produce products that people can buy as a way to support regenerative agriculture.
“Ultimately we feel it’s important to bring all this forward into the marketplace, and so enterprise development, product development, so that customers can vote by way of the practice of spending their resources and have an option to choose products that have positive ecological benefits,” Smith said…..”
View the whole story here: https://www.kcbx.org/post/environmental-nonprofit-acquires-1000-acre-santa-barbara-ranch-regenerative-agriculture-center