Our Partner - Lani Farm

By eating jolieLife you are doing more good than you realize, you are participating in the amazing work that goes on at Lani Farm for the earth and humanity.  

Yesterday I toured the main farm that supplies us wth vegetables and fruits.  The tour could not have come at a better time - a gift I needed. I choose all the suppliers for jolieLife based on their farming practices and the spirit of the people because I want jolieLife food to feed your body, but also in doing so, to be an act of good in the world and to the earth. I encountered Lani farm at the Union Square Farmers’ Market and have been receiving food from Lani Farm since jolieLife started, but I had not gone to the farm.

Yesterday’s tour was proof that you can draw to yourself exactly your perfect match. Lani Farm was created by Steve and Dusan - Steve began farming in Korea and Dusan in the former Yugoslavia.  They are both a gift - passionate, innovative, and forces of good.
First off, all the farming practices go further than organic requirements and are kind to the earth.  The farm itself is as self sustaining as possible producing it’s own compost, mulch, and water sources. The prepared Korean food and flours they sell are all with vegetables grown on the farm - if they don’t grow it, they do not sell it.  Vegetables are grown in mixed communities of plants so that pests are kept at bay, soil nutrients are built up, and plants are allowed to grow as strongly as possible.  This all means more nutrition in your food.

The plant varieties are chosen for health, performance, and taste - many of them heirlooms.  For example, they grow ancient wheat. Un-genetically modified wheat has extremely low yields.  But it tastes better, and is better digested by the body. Crops are constantly rotated, cover crops are turned into the soil to maintain and improve soil health with each planting, fields are allowed to rest.  This practice, even in organic farms, is frequently ignored in favor of higher profits. 

But more than anything, the will to do good is so evident.  There is a pervasive desire to work in cooperation with the earth, the individuals who work on the farm are provided with amazing housing and leisure spaces that reflect their worth and value as equal human beings - most farms provide what I consider sub-humane living conditions.

And, this is the pièce de résistance, the farm is in the process of constructing a retreat space, a housing community for the elderly, and low income housing where Lani Farm absorbs all housing expenses for the people living there.  And, within the farm is farmland allocated for growing crops purely for donation to food pantries,  I know of other farms that donate their surplus, but this level of generosity is unmatched

The spirit and actions of generosity and social responsibility were exactly what I needed when the world looks so dark with Covid, financial crisis, and the murder of George Floyd.  There is still a lot of light and love in the world.  And when we desire to be a force of love and light, we often are already in cooperation with love in ways we do not even realize. 

Love,
Julia
xo