>Programs >Organic Farm Incubators

ALBA provides access to land, irrigation, and equipment for beginning and limited-resource farmers. Participants enter into annual land lease contracts that may be renewed for a number of years depending on their business development. Lease rates start well below market rate and gradually increase over time. In almost all cases, completion of the Small Farmer Education Program is a pre-requisite for accessing ALBA farmland. We operate two farms in rural Monterey County:

The Rural Development Center (RDC) is located on a 110-acre organic farm between Salinas and Chualar, and serves as ALBA headquarters, with recent additions including a resource center and classroom, maintenance workshop and produce cooler and distribution facility. The Salinas farm is home to the Small Farm Education Program where beginning farmers learn about organic farming, business planning and marketing. Typically, more than 16 farmers cultivate more than 50 different crops at the RDC. During their tenure here, we help the farmers establish and transition their small farm businesses to other locations.

The Farm Training and Research Center, also known as the Triple M Ranch, is located in northern Monterey County. This 195-acre farm (60 acres of which can be cultivated due to a natural lands easement) demonstrates soil, water and habitat conservation in the environmentally sensitive Elkhorn Slough watershed. The farm hosts many workshops and field days every year. Local Latino farmers lease land here in order to learn new strategies that can be adapted elsewhere–sometimes on leased land that they manage elsewhere. By creating more diverse market options, ALBA is opening new opportunities for farmers in northern Monterey County, where more than half speak Spanish as their first language.

In addition, there is an extensive inventory of farm supplies and equipment managed by ALBA. Major equipment – tractors, implements and irrigation infrastructure – are made available on a fee basis.