Pie Ranch

“Some of the land and buildings used by pie ranch in its operations are owned by ag land stewards, llc (ein20-1980195) formerly pie ranch prop llc . Members of the llc include the executive director & farm programs director of pie ranch; however, none of the members of the llc are on the board of directors of pie ranch. Rent charged to pie ranch is 1 per year.”

“Jered lawson ag land stewards, llc exec dir llc member business relationship nancy vail ag land stewards, llc farm pro dir llc member business relationship”

“The draft version of form 990 is submitted to the cfo for review. The cfo reviews form 990 for accuracy.”

“For conflicts of interest involving the board, each member must annually sign a conflict of interest statement. The member must reveal any conflict of interest and must recuse himself from voting on related matters. The board must also determine the agency could not have received terms and conditions that are materially better from disinterested parties and that any agreement is fair and reasonable.”

“Governing documents are made available to the public upon request.”

“Board members are not compensated but executive directors are compensated.”

“Already spend their days - in the classroom. Classroom lessons integrate environmental education, food system, and food justice lessons into their regular curriculum in subjects such as english, science, health, government, and economics. The students are typically involved for a year at a time, and many are engaged with us over two or more years. In addition to classroom work, youth visit our farm and work in their school gardens, having hands-on outdoor experiences that are tied to what they learn in their classrooms. Farm visits make pie ranch's program unique, because students connect with nature by participating in a full-scale living eco- system. They also work with our skilled chef educators in our outdoor kitchen to make nutritious meals and bake pie together, starting with ingredients they harvest on our farm. They are able to experience the full cycle of food, from seed, to harvest, to table. The goals of our farmer apprenticeship program are met through an intensive program of both theoretical and hands-on learning. Their training program follows the annual seasonal cycles of farm planning, preparation, planting, and harvest. Our apprentices gain hands-on experience operating all aspects of our sustainable farm's seasonally-changing workload through one full year. An important component of their learning is about how to operate a financially-viable farm enterprise, and generate earned income from a variety of sources including community supported agriculture ("csa"), wholesale and retail sales, value-added products, fees for service, small farm marketing, and brand creation. Our regional advocacy program advocates and acts in collaboration with regional partners to create a healthier food system, and enact local policies and practices that will encourage, support, and protect sustainable farming and local food consumption in our region. Currently, this program is focused upon creating a san mateo county policy that will attract entrepreneurial farmers to our area, in collaboration with our many regional allies within and among the san mateo food systems alliance (of which pie ranch is a founding member). The first policy is focused on something that the board of supervisors could pass, called the local farmstead resolution, which would make it more affordable to build basic farm infrastructure, by waiving permitting fees if the farm projects are clearly linked to increasing local food production for local consumption. The second would go to the voters in 2014 and will be focused on agricultural land preservation for serving this new demand for local food. We are in the midst of conversations with the peninsula open space trust ("post") and the mid-peninsula open space district about advancing these proposed policies. Pie ranch expanded its farming operations and started leasing 75 acres at ao nuevo ranch in 2013. We created the concept csa 2.0 with the idea of to uniting the purchasing power of large organization meal programs such as google, with the ethics and values associated with the csa movement - bringing more transparency and care into the relationships from seed to table. The idea is to integrate the lunch experience of the employee, with inspiration and ingredients for meals prepared at home. The farm would be the common denominator. Upfront mutual commitment and risk sharing agreed upon wholesale price-points for the cafeterias and retail values to the employees would help stabilize cash flow of the farm. Lessons gained by tech companies that utilize innovative platforms and social media tools can help to best design a new csa experience geared to not only enhance the individual's food experience, but also the relationships between all the stakeholders in the food system. The direct connection with the farm has helped employees and students of organizations like google, stanford dining, and airbnb to understand where some of their food is coming from as well as what it means to be certified organic, food”