Darin Laity loves the land.
He loves how farming gets people into nature and forges deep connections with creation and its bounty. For a few years Laity farmed a piece of land in San Luis Obispo, California, but though he loved the work, it didn’t provide enough to sustain his family.
So he gave up his dream. But before Laity left, he knelt over the land he had farmed and prayed for it, asking the Lord to bless the work he had done to rehabilitate the soil. In that moment, the Lord placed on Laity’s heart a longing for a place where his neighbors could work the land together and create a community farm.
A few years later the Lord would not only answer Laity’s prayer, but also use his knowledge, along with help from Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) and Grace Central Coast Church, to start Firstfruits Farm SLO, an organic farm providing fresh produce for people in need throughout San Luis Obispo County (SLO).
Unmet Needs in a Land of Abundance
Affluence and agriculture collide in San Luis Obispo. An agrarian community nestled 190 miles north of Los Angeles and 230 miles south of San Francisco on California’s idyllic Central Coast, San Luis Obispo provides the bulk of the fresh produce heading to both cities and relies on migrants for farming help. The city of about 45,000 sits in the middle of California’s wine country and is home to a community college and California Polytechnic State University, known locally as Cal Poly.
But living in San Luis Obispo is expensive: Only 19% of homes in this city are within the budget of a family earning the median household income. The National Association of Home Builders ranked it as one of the 10 least-affordable regions in the U.S. in 2019. Homelessness remains a problem in the region.
Low-income San Luis Obispo residents stretch their dollars by shopping at local food banks such as God’s Storehouse Food Pantry, run by Grace’s San Luis Obispo campus, GraceSLO. When GraceSLO took over managing the food pantry in 2011, pastor Ken Peet and his wife, Judi, were disappointed by the paltry selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. They knew the church could do better for its community.
The Peets asked church member Marti Kessler, an avid gardener, to investigate how the church could grow fresh produce for God’s Storehouse. The Peets suggested Kessler reach out to the man who had once farmed their land, Darin Laity.
Laity was working toward graduate degrees in agriculture and environmental science at Cal Poly when he got the call from Kessler. Aware of how much work the project would require, Kessler cautiously asked Laity if he would be interested in helping to create a volunteer-run farm on the Peets’ property.
“When Marti called, it was like, ‘Wow!’” Laity said. “She didn’t even need to finish explaining the idea before I was on board.”
Kessler and Laity discussed creating the volunteer base needed to maintain a farming operation. Then Laity took the idea to his pastor, Jon Medlock, at Trinity. For Medlock, the farm presented a rich variety of opportunities such as mercy ministry, community building, outreach, creation care, and intergenerational service.
In 2013 the farm harvested 8,800 pounds of produce. Five years later the harvest had grown to 18,000 pounds of produce, which it donated to eight organizations around San Luis Obispo.
“It just fit so much the personality of the church,” Medlock said. “It was pretty obvious pretty quickly that it fit the theological convictions of creation care, acts of mercy, and relational ministry. Over time, we realized it also created a third space where Christians naturally overlapped with people from the community who were not believers.”
High-Quality Food for Everyone — Regardless of Income
In 2013 the farm harvested 8,800 pounds of produce. Five years later the harvest had grown to 18,000 pounds of produce, which it donated to eight organizations around San Luis Obispo, including Cal Poly, the community college, a veteran center, a women’s shelter, and a low-income, over-55 apartment complex.
Firstfruits Farm SLO has expanded its operations, planting an orchard on the Peets’ property and moving the vegetable farm to land donated by another nonprofit. Hundreds of volunteers from Trinity, GraceSLO, and other service organizations help with planting, weeding, and harvesting.
Though many of the farm’s volunteers still come from the founding churches, the farm has outgrown its original role as a church ministry and has become an independent nonprofit. Faith Carlson quit her job as a social worker to be Firstfruits Farm SLO’s executive director.
Leaving the church umbrella doesn’t mean Firstfruits Farm SLO has abandoned its core Christian identity. “The dream is that the farm be faith-based,” Carlson said. “Where churches and faith communities have the opportunity to participate in a very particular kind of Christian obedience and it is deeply invested in the community as a whole. The farm can intersect with different people and promote food access to make San Luis Obispo whole.”
Also nurtured in the farm soil is a commitment to food access as justice. Routinely purchasing organic, high-quality, diverse fruits and vegetables requires a level of disposable income that many in San Luis Obispo lack. If those residents were to choose high-quality foods, Medlock said, it would require them to go without something else.
“Accessing high-quality organic fruits and vegetables in a community where a lot of people cannot afford those is an act of protest against an economy that locks certain people out of that choice,” Medlock said.
Laity believes the farm field should level the playing field. “The food recipients who line up to collect their food each week constantly receive an unspoken message from society: They are unimportant,” Laity wrote in his master’s thesis about the farm. But Firstfruits Farm SLO’s existence tells residents on the fringe that they are seen, they matter, and their neighbors do not want their needs to go unmet.
In 2012, when Laity announced to shoppers at God’s Storehouse that a new farm had been created specifically for providing them with high-quality fresh produce, they rejoiced. Some, he said, were moved to tears. The memory of it still moves Laity to tears.
In Laity’s view, “Access to wholesome food should not be a privilege. In light of human dignity and the fact that all humans are made in the image of God, we should all have access to food that sustains us.”
Rebelling Against Polarization — and Mechanization
Firstfruits Farm SLO does more than nourish bodies. It is bringing together hundreds of volunteers to join in a movement bigger than themselves. The seeds that they plant aren’t merely symbols of good food; they represent hope for a better tomorrow.
The laborious planting, growing, harvesting, washing, packing, and delivering — by hand — of high-quality fresh food sends this message to its recipients: They deserve the best that is available.
When Laity gives instructions to volunteers, he tells them that some things are worth the fight. Humanity is worth the fight. “Given the current state of the nation and how easy it is to give up on good things, the farm has become the resistance of polarization,” Carlson said.
The farm also rebels against mechanization and the myth that faster is better. While Firstfruits Farm SLO embraces some technology — no one tills the rows by hand — the board doesn’t want the endeavor to be driven by machinery. The slow, deliberate work of tending the soil, planting seeds, nurturing plants, harvesting crops — it requires patience and faith.
“The laborious planting, growing, harvesting, washing, packing, and delivering — by hand — of high-quality fresh food sends this message to its recipients: They are valuable, cared about, important, and deserve the best that is available,” Laity wrote.
Food for the Future
The farm grows 30 types of vegetables, balancing popular plants — such as tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers — with plants that regenerate well or are heartier when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
Firstfruits Farm SLO’s board wants the farm to eventually produce crops year-round, but it still lacks the infrastructure and funding for year-round growing, which requires more land and hands. The next step will be hiring a farm manager and building greenhouses for the cooler months.
In the meantime, there’s plenty to do. During the winter 20 to 30 volunteers put nutrients back in the soil, monitor moisture levels, eradicate weeds, and plant cover crop. In 2019, volunteers raised funds to purchase a seed drill-and-drop spreader to speed the planting process.
Planting starts in March, and hundreds of volunteers show up on planting days. By April, the plants are starting to grow, and harvest season runs from June until November. The farm has three harvest days each week, and 10 volunteers help with each harvest day.
As its 2020 planting season begins, the leadership at Firstfruits Farm SLO has adjusted all farm activities to comply with COVID-19 safety guidelines. Since 100 volunteers cannot safely plant at the same time, planting will happen in shifts this year. Three shifts per day for seven days, no more than 10 people per shift.
Five years ago the farm planted its orchard. Carlson calls it a “statement of hope,” as orchards take years of investment before any yield appears. The orchard has almost 50 trees that will one day produce apples, apricots, nectarines, plums, pears, oranges, and lemons. In 2019, one tiny pear emerged. While it will be a few more seasons before the orchard is fully producing, Marti Kessler joyfully brought the first fruits to board memberrs, who divided up the first return on their statement of hope.
It was delicious.
Megan Fowler is a writer and editor based in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
Photography by Brinson+Banks
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