Profiles in Preservation
MALT protects local family farms and ranches one at a time, and each one has a story. Below are just a few of the ranches and farms that MALT has protected (see a map & list of all 83), and we will be adding more profiles.
Explore some of our MALT-protected farms and ranches, the food they grow, and where you can find their products.
FEATURED FARMS & RANCHES
Barboni Ranch, Hicks Valley
Barboni Ranch, Hicks Valley
For more than 100 years, the Barboni family has taken care of the land and in turn the land has taken care of them. MALT’s recent purchase of two agricultural conservation easements on 1,194 acres of the family’s ranch is the latest chapter of this ongoing story.
Barinaga Ranch, Marshall
Barinaga Ranch, Marshall
Marcia Barinaga and her husband, Corey Goodman, are relative newcomers to West Marin ranching. When they purchased their ranch in 2001 they had no intention of becoming sheep ranchers. Fast-forward to today: Barinaga Ranch has made a name for itself producing the first farmstead sheep’s milk cheese in Marin.
Black Mountain Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Black Mountain Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Black Mountain, known by locals as Elephant Mountain, quietly oversees much of Marin’s protected open space, rising to 1,280 feet near the geographical center of the County.
Chileno Valley Ranch, Chileno Valley
Chileno Valley Ranch, Chileno Valley
The Gales raise grass-finished Angus beef as well as lamb, and sell directly to consumers. In addition, they run U-pick apples, pears, and tomatoes on Sundays each fall and have offered plein air painting workshops during the summer.
Dolcini Red Hill Ranch, Hicks Valley
Dolcini Red Hill Ranch, Hicks Valley
Situated at the intersection of Hicks Valley Road and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, Red Hill Ranch has been in the ownership of the same family for nearly a century. Arnold Dolcini, Sr. started a dairy at that location in 1918, and the family has had an agricultural operation there ever since. In 1973, the ranch was inherited by seven Dolcini siblings who are the children of Arnold, Jr. and his wife Betty, both deceased.
Fred Corda Ranch Novato
Fred Corda Ranch, Novato
The Corda family has owned this spectacular ranch west of Novato since the early 1900s. Agricultural operations on the ranch include raising beef cattle and dairy heifers, as well as silage crop production for a local dairy. Without the sale of a conservation easement to MALT, the family would have likely been forced to subdivide the ranch and sell parcels to settle estate issues.
Cow Track Ranch, Nicasio
Cow Track Ranch, Nicasio
The Daniels family – Liz, Bruce, and their daughter Melissa – are eager to share the bounty and beauty of Marin’s agricultural landscape with visitors. From their 468-acre Cow Track Ranch in Nicasio Valley, the Daniels welcome guests from all across the country to enjoy the sights, tastes and sounds of this diversified, family-owned farm and ranch.
Fallon Ranch, Tomales
Fallon Ranch, Tomales
A bright ribbon of green announces Stemple Creek’s meandering passage through Fallon Ranch. In this quiet countryside east of Tomales, dairy cattle graze on gentle, grassy hills, while organic tomatoes, squash and potatoes grow row by row in fertile soil. Scott Murphy purchased this 186-acre ranch in 1979 as a young member of a long-time coastal California farming family, and since then he has made a home and a life here on the ranch
Gallagher North Bend Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Gallagher North Bend Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Gallagher North Bend Ranch takes its name from the sweep of Lagunitas Creek as it skirts the foot of Marin’s iconic Black Mountain. For over a century, the Gallagher family has tended the fertile flatlands, pastures and woods that roll up from the south bank of the creek.
Giacomini Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Giacomini Ranch, Point Reyes Station
Clearly visible from State Highway One, Inverness, and Point Reyes National Seashore, Giacomini Ranch–home of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company–is an important part of West Marin’s pastoral landscape. The Giacomini family has owned and operated a dairy on the ranch since 1959, turning it into one of the largest and most productive operations in Marin County. At one time they milked up to 500 cows a day. However, Bob Giacomini listened carefully when his daughters proposed doing something very different.
Jensen Ranch, Tomales
Jensen Ranch, Tomales
The Jensen Ranch is one of the oldest continuously operating ranches in Marin County. Bill Jensen is the 5th generation of his family to live and work there. Today he raises sheep and replacement dairy cattle on the 179-acre spread.
Lafranchi Ranch
Lafranchi Ranch
Roll through the rural village of Nicasio any sunny weekend, and you’re likely to notice a crowd gathered at a tidy grey building near the center of town. Visitors come by car, bus and bike to the tasting room at the Nicasio Valley Cheese Company, lining up to sample each of the cheeses made here. Since 2010 the Lafranchi family has produced organic cheese in a historic dairy barn, using milk from cows that graze the slopes behind the barn.
Leiss Ranch, Chileno Valley
Leiss Ranch, Chileno Valley
Gladys Leiss and her husband Bill moved to this 208-acre Chileno Valley ranch in 1945. Though the house was nothing more than a shack then, the beautiful ranch with its native perennial grasses and its bay, madrone, buckeye, and oak woodlands appealed to the young couple. The ranch’s hills are still freckled with serpentine rock and blanketed with wildflowers—shooting stars, tidytips, buttercups, goldfields, and poppies. “Bill liked it, and so did I,” Mrs. Leiss recalled, so they made up their minds to buy the place.
McIsaac Ranch, Tomales
McIsaac Ranch, Tomales
On a warm late-summer morning Jessica McIsaac greets us and motions to a grey trailer. “We’ll feed the chickens in a minute,” she says over her shoulder, “but I wanted to show you something first.” As she walks us toward the trailer she fires off a quick history of the ranch. Her husband, Neil III, is a fifth-generation Marin rancher. He runs the Neil McIsaac and Son dairy ranch with his father, Neil Jr. In 1991, Neil Jr. sold MALT its first conservation easement on a dairy.
Moretti Ranch, Fallon
Moretti Ranch, Fallon
In 2012, MALT helped permanently protect the organic Moretti Dairy near the town of Tomales when it acquired the development rights on a 126-acre parcel located directly behind the family’s ranch. Second-generation dairy farmers Monique and Mike Moretti had leased this pasture for 16 years, transitioning it to organic to provide essential grazing land for their herd of milking cows.
Paradise Valley Ranch, Bolinas
Paradise Valley Ranch, Bolinas
Seeded in the fertile floor of the Martinelli family’s Paradise Valley Ranch in 1983, Fresh Run Farm is the site of one of the earliest certified organic farms on the West Coast. From crisp kale to bold squash to sweet strawberries, the land produces organic fruits and veggies for some of the Bay Area’s most iconic restaurants, including Quince and Chez Panisse. Fresh Run Farm is operated by third-generation owner Peter Martinelli, who carries on Bolinas’s innovative tradition of organic agriculture.
Pozzi Ranch, Valley Ford
Pozzi Ranch, Valley Ford
A long, winding road separates Pozzi Ranch from the rest of the world. Sheep graze in pastures that line the road, which ends at a turn-of-the-century home and barns. Fourth generation West Marin rancher Joe Pozzi runs this sheep and cattle ranch, which supplies 100 percent grass-fed and pasture-raised lamb to Whole Foods Markets in Northern California. Joe also markets his, and many other local ranchers’, wool to natural bedding companies and Pendleton Woolen Mills, which weaves the wool into fabric for Joe’s wool program. Joe says, “wool is a great renewable resource, and it has many incredible qualities, including being naturally fire retardant – which is good for the bedding companies.”
Straus Home & Dairy Ranches, Marshall
Straus Home & Dairy Ranches, Marshall
The story of the Straus family in West Marin began when Bill Straus started farming here on the beautiful shores of Tomales Bay in 1941 with a herd of just 32 cows. In 1950, Bill was joined on the ranch by his newlywed, Ellen.
Stubbs Ranch, Hicks Valley
Stubbs Ranch, Hicks Valley
In 1982, Tom Stubbs, a 4th-generation farmer from England, and his wife Mary purchased their ranch overlooking Hicks Valley. Mary and Tom immediately fell in love with the land situated just a few miles from the Petaluma border and four years later sought to permanently protect it from non-agricultural development by selling a conservation easement to MALT. Stubbs Ranch is now home to Stubbs Vineyard.
Thacher Ranch, Tomales
Thacher Ranch, Tomales
Up near the Marin-Sonoma border, the Thacher Ranch lies at the end of a dry and dusty dirt road, winding past whitewashed wooden fences, coast live oak, red-winged blackbirds, and dozens of heifers who pause momentarily from their grazing to stare at passing cars with mild curiosity.
Toluma Farms, Tomales
Toluma Farms, Tomales
Tamara Hicks and David Jablons met while living in San Francisco. The couple share a love of the outdoors and found themselves escaping, along with their daughters Josy and Emmy, to West Marin on weekends. They dreamed of buying farmland and learning to work the land and produce local food. In 2003 they purchased Toluma Farms and the first part of that dream came true. Ten years later they launched their own artisanal, farmstead cheese company, Tomales Farmstead Creamery, and brought the dream full circle.
MAP & LIST
Click here to see a larger map and a list of all 80 MALT-protected farms and ranches.
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Marin farmland forever.
© 2008-2018 Marin Agricultural Land Trust. All Rights Reserved.
© 2008-2018 Marin Agricultural Land Trust. All Rights Reserved.