Regenerator Farmer Program at Cascade Ranch

The Cascade Regenerator Program (CRP) helps new farmers, ranchers and land stewards take the next step in their careers, with an emphasis on providing equitable economic and wealth-building opportunities to under-resourced, early-stage farmers and ranchers.

We focus on moving resources toward women, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and center our efforts on the regional farm community, Amah Mutsun Tribal members (the Amah Mutsun partners with Pie Ranch to steward the land at Cascade and “Home Pie” in honor of the Quiroste people), LGBTQIA people, and others who've been historically denied access to land. Under the leadership of Leonard Diggs, Director of Farmer and Rancher Opportunities, the CRP provides farmers and ranchers with land to start their own small farm businesses, along with mentorship, access to equipment, sales and marketing support, and financial and business planning training from our program partners.

In 2018, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Council gave us their blessing to pursue this project and shared their goals in partnering on a vision of weaving together traditional ecological knowledge and practices with regenerative agriculture principles. In 2019, we went through a community-based visioning process. We collected feedback from surrounding farmers, partners, and potential program participants to inform the project. The CRP currently houses three organic regenerative agriculture farms and projects employing over 16 people:

• Brisa Ranch, a graduate of CRP, grows a diverse range of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. It is run by three co-owners who have stayed on to lease farmland: Cristóbal Cruz Hernández, Veronica Mazariegos-Anastassiou, and Cole Mazariegos-Anastassiou.

• Huertos del Pacifico, José Almendárez’s farm, growing dry-farmed beans, onions, Mexican squash, peas, and zucchini.

• Blooming Marias, Maria Zavala’s flower farm.

The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band operates a Native Plant Program on the site that has been instrumental in restoring the fire-damaged Coastside with native, more fire-resilient flora. The last project is an aquaculture project that also commenced in 2024 and is operated in partnership with UCSC.

In addition to growing new businesses, CRP is a research and innovation lab that tests and demonstrates the impacts of climate-smart farming and ranching practices. These practices include using nutrient-rich water from onsite aquaculture tanks to simulate the growth of native plants and exploring other new agricultural technologies.

If you are interested in learning more about the program, please fill out this brief interest form.