About Us

Founding

The School of Adaptive Agriculture began in 2013 as The Grange Farm School. The concept of an intensive farming vocational program was first developed by the 10,000 members of the California State Grange in 2011.  Members of Little Lake Grange met and developed a proposal to locate the School in Mendocino County.  The School opened on 12 acres of the Ridgewood Ranch south of Willits, California, in 2013 and is now supported by a wide network of farms and food advocates across the region, state, nation, and world. 

The rural, populist, and radical Grange organization began in 1867, and its rich history is our inspiration for training the current and next generation in a new paradigm of the food system. The Grange was founded to advance responsible methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States.  Granges throughout California and beyond provided crucial initial sources of support for the School. When the State Grange found that it could not continue to fund the project at the level needed, the School became independent under the fiscal sponsorship of North Coast Opportunities, eventually changing our name from the Grange Farm School to the School of Adaptive Agriculture.

In 2021 the School incorporated and in 2022 was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 public benefit non-profit organization.

Ridgewood Ranch

The School is located on the 5,000-acre Ridgewood Ranch, 6 miles south of Willits, CA. The valley and hills that now comprise the Ranch have been home to a variety of inhabitants over the years, including Northern Pomo people, sheep and cattle ranchers, racing horse moguls, and loggers. It was famously the home of the racehorse Seabiscuit. Since the 1960’s it has been owned and operated by Christ’s Church of the Golden Rule, who host a number of non-profit organizations as well as the School, and a small, thriving community of Church members and others. The valley that contains Ridgewood Ranch is full of natural beauty and peace.

Since 2013 our flagship program has been the Practicum Program, designed to be an intensive introduction to small-scale farming and livestock production. In 2019 we initiated a Workshop Program to draw on local expertise for workshops of interest to local farmers and ranchers, food entrepreneurs, herbalists, homesteaders, and others. The School has been a regular co-host of the Farmers Convergence, a gathering of local farmers primarily from Mendocino and Lake counties for a day of talks, workshops and networking. We have engaged local farmers in technical trainings and hosted other conferences on regenerative and ecological farming practices. Since 2015 our farm has served as an Incubator Farm for beginning farmers, honing their skills and learning first hand the economics of small farming. These farms have also been the core of our Internship Program, training numerous young people in small-scale farming techniques.