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Growing Minds As Well As Produce At South Coast Community Farm

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KCLU News
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Fairview Gardens Farm in Goleta.

Do you think about where the food on your plate comes from?

That's the question being asked of a group of children, who are making lemonade from fresh lemons.

It’s part of their Farm Camp week, here at Fairview Garden Farm in Goleta.

It’s one of the ways that this community farm gives back, says the farm’s manager Chris Melançon.

"We are a community resource, we grow food that we sell at a farm stand," explains Melançon. "We also have people who come here for farm tours. We have the farm camp for kids and so we have people who come here for educational programs to learn any number of things - but all are related to nature and agriculture."

The non-profit is one of the oldest organic farms in California.

"First of all we are a certified organic farms, which means that there's a U.S. Department of Agriculture standard," continues Melançon. "What we are more focused on here is beyond organic and that's regenerative agriculture. That's means we are giving back more to the earth than we are taking."

"It all starts and ends with the soil so we are focused on building soil health," he says.

The farm isn’t just home to the produce they sell twice a week from their farm stand in Goleta, but also to Audrey, the goat and Marilyn the alpaca…as well as ducks and chickens.

Fairview farm
(Image courtesy of Fairview Gardens Farm)
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Fairview Gardens Farm sells their produce twice a week from their stand

He says the farm intends to add dairy goats, sheep and some breeding pigs, as well as grow the chicken flock.

7-year-old Zoe, who is attending Farm Camp this week, agrees that "it's fun to watch things grow," on the farm.

Caroline joined KCLU in October 2020. She won LA Press Club's Audio Journalist of the Year Award in 2022.

Since joining the station she's won 7 Golden Mike Awards, 4 Los Angeles Press Club Awards and 2 National Arts & Entertainment Awards.

She started her broadcasting career in the UK, in both radio and television for BBC News, 95.8 Capital FM and Sky News and was awarded the Prince Philip Medal for her services to radio and journalism in 2007.

She has lived in California for ten years and is both an American and British citizen - and a very proud mom to her daughter, Elsie.