About Pie Ranch
Our Vision
- Permanently protect this special resource of the San Mateo Coast.
- Dedicate the property to educational programs related to food and farming, as well as natural and cultural history.
- Inspire urban youth to transform their relationships to food, and to work with their communities in building healthier local food systems.
- Demonstrate economically viable agriculture that is compatible with wild Nature.
What We Do
Pie Ranch seeks to inform and inspire an ever-widening circle of urban and rural residents to know and take intimate part in the food they eat. We have planted wheat for pie crusts and berries for filling, and are raising bees for honey, goats for milk and chickens for eggs on a 14-acre parcel above the historic Steele Ranch at Green Oaks Creek. In 2005, we began our youth education programs, inviting school groups out to experience a working farm. Through hands-on collaboration, teenagers discover new competencies that benefit them as individuals and in community.
Who We Are
Our team comes to this work with many years of experience in organic, diversified food production, non-profit program development, farm-based education and small-farm advocacy, as well as public service and community organizing.
Jered Lawson; Co-Director; Jered has been linking communities with local farms since 1990. He initiated and coordinated Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs at the Homeless Garden Project and the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). Jered also initiated and coordinated a statewide CSA advocacy, outreach, and educational program for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). In 1995, he organized a Western Region CSA conference that brought together over 450 farmers, consumers, educators, and agency representatives. Jered worked with Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley for three years (1999-2001) and again for CAFF until 2005 to launch their Farm-to-School programs, Food Policy Councils, and buy local campaigns. Jered is an avid photographer and writer, contributing to publications of the Center for Food Safety, the International Forum on Globalization and the Community Food Security Coalition. Jered has published interviews and writing in the books Farms of Tomorrow (1998) and Sharing the Harvest (1999), as well as a report of how Live Power Community Farm permanently protected their land as a sustainable farm. Currently, Jered splits his time between caring for his children, Lucas and Rosa, and this nascent educational farm.
Karen Heisler; Co-Director; Born, raised, and still living in San Francisco with
her family, Karen has committed herself to the work of advocating for sustainable agriculture. Karen is particularly passionate about supporting urban dwellers in discovering the places, people and systems that produce their food. She encourages this discovery to yield personal advocacy commitment in support of a thriving local food system and sustainable agriculture. As a member of the Core Group of Live Power Community Farm, Karen participated in the creative development of a novel mechanism for public-private cooperation on agricultural land tenure, a model that has been replicated several times since. Fifteen years of volunteer support to small farms and community food security projects, and a parallel track working on sustainable agricultural policy issues at US EPA have culminated for Karen in a focus on Pie Ranch and its educational and transformative potential.
Nancy Vail; Rural Programs Coordinator. Nancy is a broadly experienced sustainable food systems farmer, advocate and educator. She managed UCSC’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) from 1998 until 2008 where she trained forty apprentices a year in organic food production and the workings of CSA. She was a contributing writer to the Center’s two training manuals, Teaching Organic Farming & Gardening and Teaching Direct Marketing & Small Farm Viability. Additionally, Nancy was the Farm-to-College Coordinator at CASFS from 2005-2008 where she engaged university students in activities and classes at the campus Farm and connected the campus Farm & other local farms’ produce with the campus dining halls. Prior to her work at the Center, Nancy apprenticed on a number of farms in Japan, New Zealand, Maine, New York and Illinois. Nancy splits her time between Pie Ranch and caring for her children Lucas and Rosa. She also enjoys playing fiddle with the band, the County Line Pickers.
“We believe in the potential of this project to support the necessary bridge building between cities and their surrounding natural lands, and to demonstrate stewardship that will engage rural and urban residents of the San Francisco Bay Area together.”
– Tim Wirth
Bay Area Program Director
Trust for Public Land
“If we are truly serious about sustainability as a key component of our food system then it is critical that we create opportunities for small-scale, diverse local production. For these local producers to survive we need to create opportunities for education to enhance the level of appreciation and awareness within the surrounding community. This is what Pie Ranch is all about.”
– Jim Leap
Farm Operations Manager
Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
University of California at Santa Cruz