Capital Campaign

The unique property adjacent to the current 14-acre Pie Ranch has been initially secured by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST); accomplishing the first step in permanently protecting the site for its educational, agricultural, historical and ecological values. Pie Ranch currently assumes all legal and fininancial obligations with the use and maintenance of the property and has been given three years to raise the funds needed for the project.

It will take 2.5 million dollars to complete the capital campaign, which will enable the Green Oaks Agricultural Trust (GOAT) and Pie Ranch to become the non-profit stewards of the land, restore the buildings, and continue to operate the budding educational and public service programs.

The recovered historic Isaac Steele Ranch will also serve as the physical base for regional work with local organizations and landowners to sustain youth, farmer, and community education projects. We have begun collaborating with California Farmlink, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, the San Francisco Food Systems Council, Live Earth Farm, Green Oaks Creek Farm, Equity Trust Inc., Nextcourse, and our local service center of the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the USDA; potential collaborators include Cascade Ranch, California State Parks, San Mateo County Farm Bureau, the Trust for Public Land, and the Monterey County Agricultural and Historical Land Conservancy Inc., and many more friends and neighbors.

The physical site includes a farmhouse and numerous agricultural buildings that, once transformed into community-use facilities, will be ideal for hosting programming, and whose restoration and use will offer a unique historical asset as a public resource.

The Steele parcel fronts the highway, providing high visibility, easy access for visitors, and an ideal location for a roadside stand–featuring pie, of course–that would cater to travelers on Route 1, including the 200,000+ visitors each year to the preserve at Año Nuevo, just across the highway.

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Where will your food come from?

Being situated on the Central Coast, where prime agricultural lands are being sold for more than agriculture can support, the effort to acquire the parcel highlights one of the most pressing crises of California agriculture, the crisis of inaccess to land. The loss of agricultural land threatens to eliminate healthful food production in our region. Without local agriculture, our urban communities may lose the knowledge and resources they need to assure the Bay Area’s food security. Green Oaks Agricultural Trust and Pie Ranch are committed to raising awareness of this threat and to catalyze citizen action to address it.

Learn how you can get involved