Whether it’s finding new ways to conserve water or incorporating environmentally beneficial practices into our daily farming operation, Larrabee farms takes its commitment to good land stewardship seriously.  We are proud of the flora and fauna that reside seasonally or year round in our fields and water bodies.  These working landscapes are what make residing and earning a living in a rural environment our chosen profession.  We have over 200 acres of habitat within our boundaries year round and the “habitat” grows substantially in the winter time when our rice ground turns into a winter wonderland for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway.
 

Flora & Fauna:

Our lands are home to many animals, birds, and plants that are a great indicator of the diverse environment our lands sustain.  Some species include beaver, rodents, porcupine, fox, ducks, geese, dove, native grasses, oaks, wild rose, wild grapes, willows, and cottonwoods. 
 

Water:

As Mark Twain once said, “in California, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fightin’.”  We consider our water resources the life blood of our operation and take seriously the use and reuse of these supplies.  We care for this precious resource by laser leveling our fields to limit the amount of water used, strategically place water circulation components to encourage reuse of supplies, create and maintain natural detention basins to slow, and sometimes limit, water run-off, and utilize modern sprinkler systems.  All these measures help limit and improve the quantity and quality of water that we use on our lands.  It also keeps our groundwater resources in good shape by allowing the water to percolate back into the ground for use at a later time.  We’ve also partnered with the California Department of Water Resources and Glenn County by installing two groundwater monitoring wells on our property to improve the understanding of this resource. http://www.groundwater.water.ca.gov/
 

Air:

Like the rest of California, we’ve taken steps to improve the air we breathe by implementing measures that reduce the amount of pollutants we put in the air.  These include tractors and engines with the latest air reducing technologies, state of the art air cleaning systems on our drying and seed cleaning operations, chopping our orchard pruning back into the soil instead of burning (this is also beneficial for soil fertility) and phased out rice straw burning

Rice Straw - many years before it was outlawed in California, Larrabee Farms made a conscious decision to stop burning our rice fields.  We did this for many reasons, but the primary one was to find a solution to dealing with the left over straw before we were mandated by law to do so.  This forward thinking lead us to an amazing result – thousands of migrating friends from Canada and the Pacific coast looking for a place to rest and feed, while they picked through the water and straw increasing the decomposition of our rice straw.  It turned into a huge win-win-win for us, the birds, and the air.  To this day, we’ve been blessed with thousands of ducks, geese, swans, and shore birds returning to visiting our lands every year. 
 

Soil:
Just like the air and water, soil is the third component to a healthy and fertile environment that makes growing food a success.  We accomplish this by limiting the amount of fertilizers applied to crops through variable rate application technology, constantly monitoring soil health and maintaining a proper chemistry make-up of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and implementing best management practices in our orchards by chopping our trimmings back into the soil.  Larrabee Farms is committed to improving the soil fertility of our lands and ensuring they are better than when inherited from our forefathers.