Canada
It’s no secret: farming requires power — brain power and power from energy. Even From the day we started farming in a 2 1/2-acre backyard farm, we’ve always looked for ways to do what we thought was the right thing. On day one, that meant growing our heirloom raspberries, culinary herbs, and baby greens organically. As we grew, working to fulfill our (then) mission to make the organic choice viable, our farm land and our production expanded. We began to think about how, beyond organic farming, we could lighten the environmental footprint of our work.
That drive is strong with John Romans, one of our original organic farmers. John’s commitment to sustainability goes beyond growing organic spinach, spring mix, and all our other organic veggies. He sought out ways to minimize our ranches’ dependence on fossil fuels by making the case for investing in solar energy, which Earthbound Farm’s parent Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor agreed to.
Now, we’re so excited to share with your that we have completed our our first on-farm solar energy installations at two ranches in south Monterey County. It’s so fitting that these are the first ranches to get solar since they are among the very first ranches we transitioned to organic so many years ago. Each installation is 356kW and offsets more than 80% of those ranches energy needs annually. Over the lifetime of these systems, together they will produce 28,604,022 kWh of energy, equivalent to taking 4,369 cars off the road!
“It’s really a big deal,” said John. “I’m excited about it.”
John has also installed Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) on the irrigation pumps on his ranches so that they are using less energy when they’re pumping a lower volume of water. You might think that’s standard, but a typical pump uses the same amount of energy regardless of the volume of water it’s pumping. This is a significant energy conservation measure.
One thing John wants everyone who buys Earthbound Farm organic produce to know is, “How much care and love and attention we give to our work to give them a safe, tasty, reasonably priced product. And that we’re good stewards of the land and water.”
