PHOTO STORY: Surge project manager Tati von Rheinbaben takes us back to a day when she visited Sweet Farm, a former dairy farm that now champions veganic, regenerative agriculture.

Some day in June 2018…

Camera packed. Hybrid car booked. And off we go. We are driving one-hour inland, from our university in sunny, June-dry Palo Alto south of San Francisco to gloomy, yet also green and lush Half Moon Bay. Final destination: Sweet Farm Sanctuary.

You see, when you tell an animal-loving, vegan university student to find a location for her final “introduction to conversation photography” assignment, she might be thinking the class needs a little twist away from “classical” wildlife conservation towards farm animal protection, which in turn leads to wildlife conservation when we destroy fewer wildlands to create pastureland. Don’t get me wrong, koalas and baby elephants are adorable and need equal protection, but if a 10-week conservation photography class has not touched once on the impact animal agriculture has on habitat destruction and wildlife conservation, then it might be time to introduce that concept.

Back to the student, aka me: What I might not have known when convincing my two teammates to visit Sweet Farm for our final project, is that this sanctuary also has a 12-acre plot of land for production of fruits, vegetables and flowers employing veganic farming practices. This - subjectively - small piece of land serves as a case study to show how regenerative agriculture without animals is possible. 

Our guide through the sanctuary and organic farm is a young woman named Kristina. Wearing a flashy raincoat and pitch-black plastic boots appropriate for the misty weather, Kristina receives us with a bright smile on her face eager to show us around. 

After majoring in English and Sociology, Kristina worked at the Humane Society in Washington D.C. and Farm Sanctuary in New York State. Now she is the farm manager of Sweet Farm, where amongst other duties she takes care of the animals.

After taking a few pictures of the animals and giving some hens and goats a few hugs, their bodies covered in glistening raindrops - yeah, they don’t mind the drizzle at all - we head over to the permaculture and organic farming project. And right away I spot my first edible photo-subject: a fresh lettuce head that would make a delicious salad for dinner. All kinds of lettuce seem to grow quite well on Sweet Farm at least during this time of the year. Surely, a few little beings like to munch on the leaves sometimes, but that is the beauty of organic farming: everything is part of one living system.

Organic farming does not equal veganic farming. Globally, almost all organically grown produce is “fertilized using blood meal, bone meal, feather meal, fish meal, and manure waste-streams”, in short, the fertilizers still come from environmentally damaging animal agriculture practices. Veganic farming, on the other hand, employs green manure, compost teas, and other regenerative soil-building techniques” leaving the animals fully out of the equation.

Sweet Farm used to be a dairy farm and then an artichoke farm. And, many decades ago, the famous Depression-era photographer, Dorothea Lange, conducted a photoshoot here. Now, apart from being a haven for animals coming from factory farms and petting zoos, Sweet Farm cultivates over 100 speciality crops and flowers on its 12 acres of land: from countless, colourful vegetables and fruits to gigantic oyster mushrooms and bright yellow sunflowers, the list of plants grown on Sweet Farm keeps expanding. This has also attracted many pollinators, especially bees who contribute to the local ecosystem and food supply.

Joining the effort to bring back small-scale farming to the Bay Area, Sweet Farm has been expanding its veganic agriculture program over the years. Through the “gift a share” programme, you can even give a produce box to a low-income farmer or family in the Bay Area. 

And Sweet Farm doesn’t stop there. The sanctuary team helps entrepreneurs in the food- and ag-tech field get their companies off the ground. The team offers networking (what I call friends-making) and mentoring to the entrepreneurs who are eager to promote regenerative farming and create more sustainable food systems. So, in case you, dear reader, are looking to bounce your ideas off a creative, experienced sanctuary team, feel free to reach out to them.

Our short visit has come to an end and it’s time for us to head back to the university; other not-so-exciting courses and assignments await us. We thank Kristina for her time and promise to share the hundreds - yes, hundreds - of pictures we took in the last hour or so with the Sweet Farm team. 

As we drive off, we look back almost nostalgically at the farm (well I don’t look back; I’m paying attention to the road, but my teammates do). Tucked away in the hills of Half Moon Bay, gloomy or sunny, Sweet Farm has a magic touch to it. Old and young can come for educational tours, volunteer work and surely also fantastic photography sessions. We shall meet again, Sweet Farm! 

“Veganic farming constitutes a response to numerous animal rights, environmental, and health concerns connected to animal agriculture. In rejecting the use of farmed animal wastes, veganic growing practices delink plant farming from the systematic exploitation of animals for food.” - Veganic World

For more information on Sweet Farm, check out their website: www.sweetfarm.org

Tatiana von Rheinbaben is a global citizen who finished her master's degree in environmental engineering and science at Stanford University in June 2018, after having studied molecular biology (B.S.) at the University of California, San Diego. After an internship at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany and an internship at The Not Company in Chile, Tatiana started working for Surge and for Refarm'd, a startup helping farmers transition from animal agriculture to plant-based milk production and stock-free farming.