Megan and Jeremy Raff, Dare 2 Dream Farm
The Raff's Dare 2 Dream Farm. | Credit: Danielle Honea (Santa Barbara Independent)
Being pollinator-friendly was always a goal for Megan and Jeremy Raff’s family farm. Bees are plentiful in the Lompoc canyon they call home, and their flower garden — full of lavender and chamomile they use to make tea bags — has doubled as a happy home to beneficial bugs.
With the help of the Community Environmental Council (CEC), however, the Raffs are looking to make their entire operation, Dare 2 Dream Farms, a pollinator paradise. The nonprofit is helping them write a grant application for the state’s Pollinator Habitat Program for up to $15,000, which they’ll use to install native plants throughout their whole 40 acres, between the chicken coops and fresh produce.
Inspired by this work, CEC is now looking to assist more growers in going green. It recently created its free Central Coast AgLink (CCAL) platform, which will connect farmers with the funding and resources they need to farm more sustainably — whether it’s creating habitat, healthy soil practices, irrigation upgrades, grazing plans, or renewable energy infrastructure.
Megan Raff, for one, said she needed the help because she never envisioned herself being a farmer (she called herself a “farmer by accident,” following the inheritance of her husband’s family farm). She’s welcomed new learning opportunities, but has stuck with the same core values since the early days. “Our farm has always kind of worked on the edge of fully organic farming,” she said. “We use regenerative agriculture, and we’re committed to our sustainable farming practices.”
She said CEC staff helped them map out where it would be most beneficial to plant natives for pollinators and soil stabilization, and they have held their hand throughout the entire grant-writing process so all they will have to do is “buy, plant, and water.”
She expects to get the farm’s pollinator-friendly plants in the ground by next spring.
“We have so much agriculture on the Central Coast, but funding rarely trickles into our region to support conservation land practices on farms and ranches,” said Bre Sliker, CEC’s climate projects manager. “We want to change that.”
