Nonprofit Ma’alot Farms sits tall on a hill in Los Gatos like the Garden of Eden, bearing hundreds of pounds of produce that will be donated to food banks and kitchens to help feed people facing food insecurity.
According to Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, 1 in 6 people in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties face food insecurity. In light of the news that President Donald Trump is gutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Ma’alot Farms serves as an alternative to single-stream funding to feed people, said executive director Shoshana Ohriner. By cultivating crops through sustainable, regenerative agricultural processes, Ohriner’s farm aims to provide a diversity of foods to people in need all year round.
“Our main purpose here is to grow more food to feed more people, but to do it in a way that feeds the land as opposed to stripping the land and to do it in away that has the flexibility and resilience to withstand the upcoming changes in climate and the world and all the things that are unpredictable,” Ohriner said.
The farm’s name comes from Shir-ha-ma’alot from Psalms, which means “Songs of Ascent.” This idea of “ascent” literally shapes the landscape and philosophy of the farm. Ohriner and her husband Philip founded the farm together. They had previously served as rabbis at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga. With help from Ohriner’s parents, they purchased the land that would become Ma’alot Farms in 2017. The land had previously been an abandoned walnut grove with poison oak crawling through dead tree branches.
As the Ohriners developed the land, the couple and their three sons lived in a tiny house at the bottom of the hill. After the water systems were installed in 2022, they planted a thousand fruit and nut trees with plans to continue planting more crops.
“This land had been left abandoned and completely uncultivated for close to 50 years when we took it over,” Ohriner said. “So the elevation that we see is returning the land to production and to a wholeness and a function.”
The family cultivates 10 acres of the 16-acre plot, with the rest being an oak forest that’s left undisturbed. The hills of their property are stacked with a variety of fruit and nut trees–from apples, pears, avocados and pistachios to lychees, mangoes, pecans and chestnuts. Citrus trees grow on staggered terraces that look like staircases. Turkeys, ducks, chickens and goats freely roam around the property.
As part of their regenerative agricultural philosophy, Ohriner said, they try to plant a variety of crops together, like growing broccoli with cabbages, carrots, bok choy and radishes in their garden beds. Ohriner said the practice of integrating crops and planting perennial crops that grow all year long provides a diversity so they can have a consistent flow of food to donate.
“By planting diverse, we may not have everything every year, but we will have food, and we want to encourage others to take that approach and be able to feed our local community,” Ohriner said.
In 2023, Ma’alot Farms partnered with another nonprofit, Loaves and Fishes, to cook down and distribute some of the produce grown on the farm. Loaves and Fishes provides prepared meals and groceries to thousands of people a month across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, according to director of marketing and communications Stephenie Medina. Ma’alot Farms delivers their produce to Loaves and Fishes two or three times a month on average, depending on how much they harvest.
Medina said Loaves and Fishes asked for lettuce and other produce like radishes and spinach to make sure their clients could get a variety of nutritious foods that they may not usually have access to or knowledge of.
“It’s one thing to feed someone a meal, and it’s another to help somebody have the resources to be stable and have access to food regularly,” Medina said. “And that ultimately is the goal, especially here in the Bay Area where expenses are tight for a lot of families and they are having to choose between rent and bills or groceries and childcare.”
To support the farm’s mission, Ohriner raises money through grants, donations and membership fees, as well as payments from events or classes. But maintaining a farm has high labor costs, Ohriner said, so she relies on volunteers to help around the farm.
San Jose residents Judy Powers and Carole Reed and Los Gatos resident Rachel Freeman have all been been volunteering at the farm for around two years by helping pick and plant sweet peas, sunflower seeds and garlic cloves. They praised Ohriner for teaching them more about farming and the benefits of working in nature and giving back to the community.
“There’s something about both getting your hands in the soil and giving back to your community because they need you that is good for the soul,” Powers said. “It makes you feel powerful and good about yourself, that you, even as one person, can make a difference. And together, you can make a huge difference.”