In 2013, Sardinas and her partner, Manny, began cultivating a 99-plant cannabis garden in Aptos and producing full-spectrum cannabis oils, in which the various botanical compounds of the plant are thought to work together to provide healing properties.
Fast forward a few years and the partners decided to expand their garden; they set up shop in the hills of the Pajaro Valley, and Bird Valley Organics was born.
“My father and my grandfather, who were both farmers, did not have a full understanding of soil health,” Sardinas says.
Now Bird Valley Organics is one of Santa Cruz County’s handful of regenerative farms. At Bird Valley, the cannabis industry and agriculture pursuits are one and the same — the cannabis grows amid fennel, parsley and chamomile, and each benefits from the success of the other.
“We are taking care of Mama Earth; we are taking care of and building the soil,” Sardinas says.
It’s built on core principles of promoting biodiversity, decreasing reliance on tillage, and reducing dependency on inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides.
For example, Sardinas says the farm’s regenerative practices have been a savings boon, because they didn’t have to buy soil, seeds, pest control or pesticides, or heavy machinery to till the soil.
“We went to our local coffee shop that has organic coffee and they gave us their leftover grounds.
While they share the same goals and values as Bird Valley when it comes to the purpose and importance of regenerative practices, they have more of a technology-driven approach.
Coastal Sun is twice the size of Bird Valley, at 40 acres; because of the size, it utilizes heavy machinery to minimally till the soil.
“When you naturally grow plants in a regenerative fashion, they will have that nutrient density that we need to be healthy as people,” Coastal Sun Marketing Manager Greg Eaton says.
Regenerative practices aim for the healthiest and most nutrient-dense foods possible, and to make the benefits of a backyard tomato more accessible on a larger, more industrial scale.
“With foods, you are talking about the more classic vitamins and minerals that we are more used to hearing about.
With the legalization of cannabis in California five years ago, demand increased for products with high profiles of THC, the most psychoactive cannabinoid; in turn, the prevalence of other cannabinoids began to drop.
These terpenes and cannabinoids have synergistic properties that create a greater overall effect than the sum of its parts,” Eaton says, noting that Coastal Sun’s regenerative practices are key in this synergy.
Looking ahead, programs like OCal could create even more of a parallel to our food industry as consumers look to what is the healthiest for them and for the planet.
“Organic farming is, of course, cleaner than conventional, but you are still buying products that you are putting into the soil,” says Terry Sardinas of Bird Valley Organics.
There is no cookie-cutter method to it, no handbook, just a bunch of future-focused farmers doing what they see as being best for everyone.
“Something that we do, and Bird Valley does, is we have a lot of transparency about what we do.