People want food they can feel great about eating. We’re working to fulfill the collective desire to nourish our families in ways that are healthy, flavorful, joyful and just, and to support the well-being of our North Bay community.
Practices and Ethic
We believe in sustainable agriculture as a keystone of healthy regions. Nourishing bodies and souls with fresh food and flowers is our chief practice. In doing that we are also operating a small local business and working cooperatively with other local businesses, improving regional food security and resilience, stewarding a tiny portion of the valley’s ecosystem, and celebrating a grounded way of working and living.
We are investing fully in health at the farm. We believe that good management of the soil as a living system produces healthier, tastier food. That means good organic matter management, good tillage management, and good mineral management. We are proudly certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and the Real Organic Project.
Because of our soil-health-first approach, we are a low to no-till farm. That means very shallow and/or gentle tillage methods; we use silage tarps and time to let the soil life incorporate our crop residue. Our agroecological approach means lots of cover cropping, crop rotation, crop diversity, regular soil testing, and organic compost and mineral amendment. It also means investing fully in the land’s health through various conservation practices, including large hedgerows and insectary plantings, wildlife corridors, and a stormwater basin for irrigating all of our non-edible crops and landscaping. As of 2023 nearly all of the farm’s power comes from solar energy!
We are proud to be a part of the movements of:
1) farmers practicing organic and regenerative/sustainable/ecological/what will we call it next? agriculture
2) folks seeking food they can feel great about eating and at a fair price, and
3) chefs searching for exceptional flavor in quality ingredients.
Feel free to chat with us at the farmers market, follow us/message us on instagram or send us an e-mail.
Farm Origin
The farm is situated on a 14-acre property in the middle of Sonoma Valley: a rarity in what is now a mostly rural-residential area or vineyards. Until about twenty years ago it was pasture land for livestock. Since then, various plans for it (extend a golf course, build a school) were attempted but unsuccessful, and it remained fallow.
In 2016, Mark bought the property with a vision to build his home there and to work with a farmer to start and sustain a community-serving farm. Meanwhile, Maggie and Matt were in different farming and sustainable ag education jobs, thinking they needed to save money for about ten years to afford their own farm, which was inconvenient. Mark put his vision out to friends for feedback and support, and one of them knew Matt and Maggie and introduced them.
Mark, Terri, Matt, Maggie and Jules all moved to the farm in early 2020. After four years of literal groundwork laid — houses, well, barn, greenhouse, hedgerows, the driveway, the mailboxes!, field layout, irrigation infrastructure, and cover cropping — production and markets started in Spring 2021.
Team
Mark Feichtmeir, Owner/Founder
Mark is the Owner and Founder of Sunray Farm. His interest in ecology and sustainable living led him to be an early adopter of Permaculture. In 2000, he built a Sonoma County home with solar panels, passive cooling, geothermal exchange heating, rain water harvest and a living roof. Over the next five years, he gave workshops on green building. During this period Mark also discovered Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation. He realized that optimal human experience and health is dependent on access to nutrient-dense food.
In 2015, when Mark discovered an undeveloped parcel of land for sale near the town of Sonoma, it sparked a vision of an integrated residence and farm, marrying food and community. The next five years were a whirlwind of sustained effort--designing, building, developing infrastructure, and restoring soil. We finally moved onto the property in early 2020.
Since then, we’ve continued to evolve our farm infrastructure, adding an 800sf propagation green house and two 3000sf hoop houses for year-round production. We consistently look ahead to advancing the stewardship of our property, our farm, and our community!
Maggie La Rochelle, Farmer & COO
Maggie is the COO at Sunray Farm. Her garden and farm origins are her mom’s cooking; then, the UC Davis Student Farm. What began as an interest in home gardening became a passion-monster! Over the course of a Master’s and PhD program at Davis she continued to learn, teach and eventually research at the Student Farm. After completing her work there, she left Davis with valuable horticultural skills and sustainable ag as a vocation. A number of experiences later (a highlight of which was reviving and managing the Putah Creek Cafe Garden in the middle of beloved Winters, CA), the opportunity to start Sunray came along. She gets inspired by approaching farming as holistic community development. Maggie loves working with plants, autonomy, being creative, and the rooted life with Matt and Jules.
Matt Gunn, Farm Manager
Matt is the Farm Manager at Sunray Farm. In 2010 he was working on a trail crew in the Sierra Nevadas reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan when it became self-evident that he would become a farmer. His farming journey started that winter at Green String Farm in his home town of Petaluma, CA with the inimitable Bob Cannard. With much inspiration, Matt went on to apprentice for agronomist and farmer Bob Shaffer and his partner and farmer Christine Lee at Kona Keei Farm in Hawaii, where he started his independent study of applied soil science and mineral balance in earnest. In 2013, he spent a valuable year working under David Cooper at Oak Hill Farm in Sonoma. And in 2014, Matt became the Farm Manager at The Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, where he spent 4 years working with Farm-to-Table students to envision and harvest seasonal menus. This narrative resume is not complete if you leave off 2019, when Matt was a stay-at-home dad with his then-two-year-old son, the awesome, sweet, and only occasionally bossy Jules. Matt believes that healthy soil makes healthy crops makes healthy people! That’s what gets him revved up to farm.