EDIBLE INFLUENCER

MAGIC SOIL

Local effort turns today’s scraps into tomorrow’s food

BY TAMI CHU PHOTOS BY VIKTOR BUDNIK

Camila Guzman, 30, is bringing sexy back—to compost.

In 2017, then a student at California State University, Channel Islands, she became convinced that small-scale community garden and compost projects could change the world. “My first experience composting felt like the earth reached and pulled me into her deepest, darkest sweet secrets,” Guzman shared in a Facebook post. “It seemed like magic.” Her graduation project, “Compost Saves the World,” ignited a passion that would eventually lead her to create a small business collecting food scraps and turning what might have been waste into food for the soil. “After graduating, I continued sharing compost updates on social media, and LA Compost Executive Director Michael Martinez reached out to me, which then sparked the fire for me to begin making composting accessible for the entire Ventura community.” In April 2019, Guzman showed up to a farmers’ market with several five-gallon buckets and a sign that read “ASK ME ABOUT COMPOST.” “From there, people started to approach me with questions, comments, even stories of their own compost experiences,” she says.

The stage was set and the Queen of Compost was born. Now, Guzman regularly collects food scraps at the Downtown Ventura Farmer’s Market and is offering compost services to small businesses like Harvest Café, Channel Islands Juice Co. and Purnamaya Ayurveda Sound Healing Center. “In our first year [2019], we helped the community divert more than 2,500 pounds of food waste from going to the landfill,” she says. While one of her goals is to eventually be able to regularly distribute ready-made compost, it is still too early in the process to give much back just yet. “It takes anywhere from three months to a year to convert food into nutrient-rich humus under optimal conditions,” she explains. So far, when there has been compost to share, she has donated it to local school and community gardens and the Ojai Center for Regenerative Agriculture (CRA), a nonprofit dedicated to educating and promoting regenerative techniques and practices for healthy soils. Guzman also acts as compost coordinator for the CRA, helping to organize the Ojai bike-powered community compost program. “The CRA makes aerated compost tea, which has the potential to

distribute beneficial microbiology over wider surface areas of space compared to a single bag of compost amendment,” she says. “The tea is then distributed* to properties that suffered losses in the Thomas Fire.” Guzman tells us that Queen of Compost also partners with the CRA to educate volunteers about food waste diversion, community compost and nature-based climate solutions. It is through this partnership that her business can apply for grants to help fund the community compost movement. And it gives her access to some of their volunteers for help at the farmers’ markets, though she is “always looking for more helping hands in the dirt!” Though her business, like the compost, is still maturing, Guzman has big plans. “The intention for 2020 is to reach more community. Therefore, I plan to rotate monthly [collecting food scraps] between various markets,” she tells us. “In the future, my dream is to create more jobs for the community to thrive and build resilience through composting.”

*To find out more about compost tea and how to get it, contact David@OjaiCRA.org To find out how you can donate your food scraps or get involved in volunteering or composting, follow @queenofcompost on Instagram and visit QueenofCompost.com.

Second Annual ‘Edible’ Design Contest Winner Stacey Millett

Eat Well; Do Well; Live Well

by Stacey Millett

This image is inspired by my own mother, who would tend to our chickens like her own children, can grow a mean tomato, and does it all with grace. The message of eat well, do well and live well is a simple notion that the smallest of things can make a great positive impact on yourself, your community and our planet.

Stacey Millett grew up in a small farming town with an acre of land and had a dreamy childhood full of animals, trees, a bounty of fruits and veggies and a duck pond. As a young child she would take photographs of the hours spent enjoying the outdoors. This interest of documenting led her to art school, where she studied photojournalism. As a photographer and graphic artist for two decades, she works to propel the interest of others through design, branding, web development and workshops.

T-shirts and tote bags featuring this winning art can be purchased at EdibleVenturaCounty.com/merch.