The owners of Lazy Millennial Farms, near Salinas, Calif., may be the only veganic – vegan and organic – farm in the San Francisco Bay area, growing fresh produce without animal products, reports Civil Eats. “That means no animal fertilizers, fish emulsions, blood or bone meal … that are relied upon so heavily in organic farming.”
Co-owners Matthew and Brittany Loisel, who quit corporate jobs to go into farming, said they were struck by the irony that many animal byproducts – manure as a natural fertilizer, for instance – are commonly used on vegetable farms. The Loisels entered farming through an incubator program, the Agricultural Land-Based Training Association. They operate on two-and-a-half acres of ALBA property.
Mona Seymour, an associate professor at Loyola Marymount University said there are about 50 veganic farms in the country, but there is no organization that keeps tabs. There probably are more, Seymour said, but growers may stay away from the title because they doubt there’s a market for their goods or believe customers will view it as too extreme.
Seymour says veganic gardening is much more popular than veganic farming. Some veganic gardener groups have hundreds of members, she told Civil Eats.