Soil Born Farms cut the ribbon on Saturday, August 1, on a 3,700-square-foot Animal Barn at its American River Ranch, capping off a project nearly a decade in the making. The earth-sheltered structure, tucked into the landscape with a vegetated rooftop overlook, gives the Rancho Cordova nonprofit its first dedicated space for housing livestock, complete with animal pens, a chicken coop, a rabbitry, tool and hay storage, an ADA-accessible sloped walkway and a visitor welcome area.
The $2.9 million facility was nearly ten years in planning, permitting and construction before its grand opening, according to the Rancho Cordova Independent. Funding came together in early 2025 through a combination of the City of Rancho Cordova's Community Enhancement & Investment Fund, Sacramento County, and a $2,012,000 grant awarded in August 2024 by the California Wildlife Conservation Board, which drew on Proposition 68 dollars through the Lower American River Conservancy Program. The barn's builders designed it to sit below the surrounding orchards specifically to protect scenic views across the American River Parkway, the outlet reports.
Soil Born Farms operates on a 55-acre parcel at 2140 Chase Drive that it leases from Sacramento County, land the nonprofit describes as permanently protected. As the Sacramento Bee notes, the ranch already includes vegetable fields, fruit orchards, greenhouses, a native plant nursery, an herb garden, produce stands and a restored creek — and now a small flock of sheep and chickens that the new barn is built to support.
A Decade of Planning Meets a New Generation of Farmers
The barn's completion opens the door for Cordova High School's Agriculture Academy to expand the farm's animal flocks, according to the Bee. Students in the school's Future Farmers of America program will now be able to house and raise livestock directly on-site, per the Rancho Cordova Independent's reporting, sparing individual families the cost of building shelters in suburban backyards — a barrier that urban and suburban students raising farm animals frequently run into.
Soil Born Farms co-founder Shawn Harrison, a Sacramento native, said communities should build resilience in the food system, per the Bee's reporting. Harrison and co-founder Janet Zeller started the effort in 2000, and Zeller has said the farm sought to put more organic food in everyone's backyard. Harrison has also said his goal is a garden in every school in the region — a mission the farm has pursued for years through programs teaching school districts how to build gardens on their own campuses.
The organization's education work extends well beyond the new barn. Soil Born Farms supplies produce for school lunches in the Sacramento City Unified School District as part of a broader farm-to-school pipeline, and it houses a model school garden on-site. Farm animals moving into the new barn are also expected to help manage weeds and restore native habitat across the property, according to the seed reporting.
Building on a Broccoli Buddies Pipeline
The barn is the latest piece of a growing partnership between Soil Born Farms and local schools. Last December, the nonprofit teamed up with the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Cordova High School FFA and Cordova Gardens Elementary School to launch the Broccoli Buddies Project, a city-funded program teaching elementary students hands-on planting, harvesting and nutrition skills, as detailed by the Rancho Cordova Independent. That initiative, like the barn, drew support from Rancho Cordova's Community Enhancement & Investment Fund.
Soil Born Farms marked its own 25th anniversary last September, a milestone that co-founder Harrison described as setting the foundation for the organization's next chapter, according to CapRadio. The nonprofit now hosts roughly 140 educational classes a year, building on a track record that includes training 59 beginning farmers and logging nearly 1,800 adult class attendees in a single year across workshops ranging from school garden design to teen empowerment cooking clubs, according to the National Civic League.
Deep Roots Along the American River
The American River Ranch itself carries a much longer history than the nonprofit farming it today. The 55-acre site sits on ancestral land of the Valley Nisenan tribe and is one of the few agricultural properties along the lower American River that escaped hydrologic mining during the California Gold Rush era, with farming on the land dating back to the 1840s, according to Soil Born Farms. Deep alluvial soils deposited by river floods have allowed nearly two centuries of uninterrupted cultivation there, making it one of the last working farms along the lower American River.
The property is also bisected by the 10-acre restored Cordova Creek, where the Sacramento Water Forum and the California Wildlife Conservation Board have funded planning to naturalize the creek's confluence with the lower American River, aiming to enhance habitat for native fish species including salmonids. That watershed work ties the farm's classrooms directly to active regional conservation research.
Visiting the Farm and Its Microbusinesses
Soil Born Farms operates several small businesses that help fund its broader mission, including an organic produce stand, a greenhouse garden shop and a fruit tree nursery, along with Milly's Mercantile, which sells local farm goods, seeds, pantry staples and handmade items. The Farmhouse Kitchen opens for brunch at 9 a.m., and Phoebe's Tea & Snack Bar offers coffee and baked goods from locally owned shops. The farm's Empowerment Program employs teenagers and teaches customer service, cooking, farming and other life skills.
The farm is open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Rancho Cordova, with online ordering and Saturday drive-through pickup available — a service that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond retail, Soil Born Farms offers hundreds of classes and workshops on home gardens, teaching residents about sustainability, farming and cooking with produce they grow themselves, continuing the mission Harrison and Zeller set out on a quarter-century ago.
