ECOFARM
ECOFARM stands for Ecological and Community Oriented Farming and Resource Mobilization. The ECOFARM initiative supports local gardens in designing and building biodiverse, regenerative farms integrating ecological design for wildlife habitat and pest management, that centers food access for the neighborhood, with space for community gathering, education, and well-being. In modern urban industrial cultures, people have become very separated from their connection to nature, food, and the environment, pressured to participate in exploitative, extractive environments for survival, which contributes to stress, chronic illness, and isolation. The ECOFARM initiative is a model for holistic healing, creating space to practice more supportive and nurturing connection to the land and to each other.
Ecological and Community Oriented Farming and Resource Mobilization
ECOFARM envisions appropriate resource flows such as tool sharing and food distribution, ensuring that gardens with an abundance of food growing get harvested and distributed to those who need it most. More established or larger gardens are sometimes in a position to share more resources, such as soil, knowledge, seeds, tools, or irrigation supplies to new gardens just starting out. By providing the basic resources for starting a farm, we create the opportunity for each farm to express creativity and innovation. We envision a network of farms supporting community well-being through sharing. In this way, as we facilitate the flow of resources towards the greatest needs, we contribute to building up equity, reciprocity, and mutual aid within our community.
The ECOFARM concept was the inspiration for CalRecycle’s trailblazing Community Composting for Green Spaces program. Our ECOFARM team was a core partner in the inaugural round of funding collaborating to support 117 community composting green spaces statewide, including 28 sites regionally in the Eastern LA and Inland Empire regions, and supported 13 local Pomona Valley-based projects.