New Frontier Family Farm

May 3, 2012

New Frontier Family Farm, a sustainable local farm in Ontario/Chino, is excited about opportunities to work with Claremont Colleges students! Whether you have a few hours to help prepare pastures or feed goats, or you want to engage in a longer-term internship or research project, there are great opportunities for you to get involved.

New Frontier is a small, family-owned farm focusing on animal husbandry. They currently sell chicken, but are quickly expanding into dairy and other meats. They sell at farmers markets (hopefully soon including the Claremont market) and direct to customers around Southern California, and have relationships with local restaurants and other businesses. They emphasize humane and sustainable animal husbandry, and are trying to reduce the impact of their operation through reclaimed water, rotating pasture uses, and a variety of other techniques. They’re also lending a huge party of their property to a local non-profit to site a community garden that recently lost its land. The whole property is like a little sustainable oasis in the midst of massive dairy farms and housing developments in Ontario/Chino.
The sad part is that it’s really hard to make all of this work, in today’s world of agriculture and food. They could use help with everyday farm tasks, but also with projects like marketing, organic certification, and other administrative tasks. They focus so much on keeping the farm going every day that they haven’t had much chance to expand their market and increase sales, so if you have an eye for marketing, they could use your help!
You can see more about the farm at http://newfrontierfamilyfarm.com/ and short profile (including photos) on Bowen Close’s website.

If you’re interested, email Prof. Char Miller at char.miller@pomona.edu. He will coordinate interested students with the farm.