Healthy Soil, Healthy Seas

Aloha Through Agriculture with White Buffalo Land Trust

How we care for our land and oceans today impacts our ability to thrive tomorrow— and it’s all connected. That’s just one of the lessons the team at White Buffalo Land Trust is working hard to teach. “What I do here on my land is going to be different than what happens on the islands and different in the desert and different in a rainforest, but they all are coming back to these same principles of caring for our soil and respecting water as the foundation for life. Those things are universal,” says Jesse Smith, Director of Land Stewardship. He’s standing at the edge of Jalama Canyon Ranch in Santa Barbara, looking out across 1,000 acres of rolling farmland. In the distance, a herd of sheep dots the green expanse with tufts of white. They were brought here to graze the fields in a harmonious and natural way.

White Buffalo Land Trust is on a mission to practice, promote, and develop systems of regenerative agriculture—a practice that was pioneered in ancient Hawai‘i. “For us, that’s the investment in and the increased health of our soils, our water systems, biodiversity, and ultimately, human health,” Smith explains. Their techniques, though age-old, have seen a recent resurgence with the need for more sustainable food systems. We met with Smith and Steve Finkel, President and Founder, to explore their team’s work and how it impacts our food systems, specifically wine.

White Buffalo Land Trust is working to shift from an eradication to an inoculation paradigm through their vineyard. “Think about these vines as their own living entity. We don't want to try to kill all the things that could harm them. We want to inoculate them with the things that will benefit them,” says Smith. And that no-waste mindset reaches all the way from how the vines grow to how they are nourished. More recently, the organization has focused on two key partnerships. The first is a project they call Healthy Soils, Healthy Seas. As Smith explains, “healthy soils, healthy seas looks at how the way we care for our land impacts our coastal watershed and ecosystem, as well as how the coastal ecosystem can help benefit nutrient cycling and soil health here on the land.”

One prime example of this symbiosis can be seen in nutrient distribution from sea to land. Historically, nutrients from dead whales and seals on the seashores would be carried upland by other animals. Those nutrients would then be scattered across the hills and allow the land to flourish— but that cycle has long been broken. To naturally repair the process, they’ve been collaborating with local brand

Get Hooked Seafood to repurpose byproducts from the fishing industry into liquid fertilizer for their vineyard. The result benefits both the vines and the ocean, cutting down on waste while nourishing new crops.

The second of these two partnerships is with Sandhi Wines. Together, Sandhi and White Buffalo are demonstrating how regenerative viticulture can positively impact the land while producing topnotch grapes. Outside of bottling two blends, the duo is producing training programs that will expand the adoption of regenerative agriculture far beyond the California coast.

Smith and the rest of the White Buffalo team radiated so much of that Aloha Spirit we’ve come to know and love in Hawai‘i. So, it’s no surprise that Smith spent much of his childhood traveling to Kaua‘i with his family. Even today, Smith still applies the lessons he learned from those trips to his work on the ranch. “One of the aspects I've always respected about the Aloha Spirit is positivity. Our work is showing up for every engagement, every child, every farmer, every customer, and every donor. It’s about providing a positive experience that cascades through their life.” For him and his wife Ana, Director of Program and Engagements, this land is more than a job—it’s home.

Read the full story at OluKai.com