Farmer and chef Caroline Radice remembers waking up to frantic text messages one morning in October 2017: wildfires were rapidly moving through the hills surrounding her farm in northern California. She evacuated her younger brother from where he lived on one side of the farm as flames burned on either side of the road.
“After a terrifying night, the roads were closed, the power went out, cell phones went down, the internet was out, land lines went down,” recalls Radice.
At the urging of a friend, Radice did what she does best: cared for people through food. Radice and her team cooked and served lunches to more than 100 people who were without power throughout the following week, using ingredients grown mostly on the 5,000-acre farm where she lives, Ridgewood Ranch. The Redwood Complex fire ultimately burned 39,000 acres, tragically taking nine lives. Amid the devastation, she says the act of cooking together brought a moment of relief to her community.
“In the face of disaster and tragedy, there was so much laughter in the kitchen. Cooking together was fun, and it was easy,” says Radice. “And I would do it again tomorrow.”
Today, Radice co-owns Black Dog Farm & Catering and is Director of the School of Adaptive Agriculture, an intensive vocational farming program on Ridgewood Ranch. After farming in California for more than 20 years while juggling careers in catering, cooking, and organizing, she says one of the most important lessons she has learned is that she cannot do it all.
“I used to think that if I worked really hard and really got organized, I could be a relatively successful small farmer and be self-sufficient. One of the humbling things that I’ve realized as an adult and a farmer is that I don’t think it’s possible to be self-sufficient. None of this works without a huge amount of grace, support, and cooperation from other people,” says Radice.
“The great humbling was a painful and humiliating career phase to go through. But on the other side, I see how my farm can connect people and be a foundational cornerstone of community, bringing people together through joy, beauty, and celebration.”
This lesson is put to practice with the Good Farm Fund, which Radice co-founded in 2015. What started as plans for a small Christmas party blossomed into a large farm-to-table dinner, and eventually, a nonprofit community organization supporting the economic viability of small farms and local food access for low-income members of their community.
“I originally noticed that these farmers that I really looked up to were losing their lease, and they were trying to crowdsource money to buy land so they could stay in the area,” says Radice. “It did not work, and they got a lot of negative feedback saying that the challenges that they were facing were things faced by all farmers.”
Radice realized that these efforts could be more effective if the farmers joined together. She set up a farm grant program, which she calls “mutual aid for farmers,” where community-fundraised money goes to farm infrastructure, capacity building, food access programs, and more.
“A lot of farms have trouble getting the investment money to scale their business to a space where it’s actually sustainable. And the battle to compete with large-scale agriculture is set up for small farms to fail,” says Radice. “But people really like small farms and farmers’ markets, people want to live in a community where you can get your [Community Supported Agriculture] box, those kinds of things exist and are abundant. And we just needed to create a way to connect the community supporters with those kinds of farms.”
The Good Farm Fund has awarded more than US$500,000 in grants to date, a testament to the power of community-based action: “We’re building the infrastructure of the food system that we want to have,” says Radice.
This article is part of Food Tank’s ongoing Farmer Friday series, produced in partnership with Niman Ranch, a champion for independent U.S. family farmers. The series highlights the stories of farmers working toward a more sustainable, equitable food system. Niman Ranch partners with over 500 small-scale U.S. family farmers and is committed to preserving rural agricultural communities and their way of life. Food Tank was proud to collaborate with Niman Ranch in lifting up family farmer stories, including Radice’s at Climate Week NYC: A Night of Storytelling Honoring Our Farmers. Watch her story and others on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo courtesy of Caroline Radice
