From a quiet hillside cattle ranch to a high school farm bustling with Future Farmers of America (FFA) students and baby animals, more than 20 sites across Santa Barbara County welcomed the public Saturday for the seventh annual Farm Day.

The free, self-guided event gave visitors a chance to tour working farms, taste fresh produce and connect directly with the people who grow food, raise animals and teach the next generation of agricultural leaders. 

Organized by Students for Eco-Education and Agriculture (SEEAG), Farm Day highlights both long-standing traditions and innovative programs shaping the future of farming in Santa Barbara County.

For the first time, this year’s lineup stretched the full length of the county, with new stops in Carpinteria and the Santa Ynez Valley.

Among the rolling hills of southern Santa Maria, Las Cumbres Ranch offered visitors a detailed look into the principles of regenerative agriculture. The picturesque setting, which also serves as a wedding venue, bustled with activity as guests were greeted by student members of the Pioneer Valley FFA.

Ranch Manager Stefan Selbert, whose family owns the ranch, led tours explaining the operation’s holistic philosophy.

“We are working with nature and never against nature,” Selbert said. “That means we don’t really use any fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or anything chemical.”

A central focus of the tour was the ranch’s herd of Bonsmara cattle, a breed chosen for its ability to thrive in the local climate.

“They’re a mix between Shorthorn, Africander and Hereford,” Selbert said. “They do well in this kind of environment.”

He pointed out physical traits that make the cattle well suited to the region’s conditions including upturned noses to regulate air temperature, long tails for fly control and a dewlap that helps cool their blood in the heat.

“They have incredibly thick skin,” Selbert said. “We do not vaccinate or use any antibiotics or anything like that because most cattle-borne diseases are transferred through ticks. And they have too thick of skin for the ticks to get to.”

Selbert explained that Las Cumbres practices high-density grazing, moving the herd as often as every seven minutes on some pastures to mimic the behavior of ancient bison.

“Overgrazing doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of cattle you have. It has to do with how soon you graze it after it grows,” Selbert said. “It’s literally the most important time; everybody forgets that grass needs time to grow.”

This method, he said, allows grasses 90 to 120 days to recover, which improves soil health, sequesters carbon and even helps with fire mitigation by trampling down dry brush. Selbert said the goal is not about speed or quantity.

“A lot of this stuff is old knowledge, but it requires more,” he said. “It requires smaller farms, it requires time and it requires more management intensity.”

Selbert added that “it’s a lot of slow growth but with better quality produce, whether it be beef, fruits or vegetables.”

The ranch also offered visitors a taste of the simple joys of farm life. Nearby, a young girl named Olive Daub carefully fed peas to a pen of friendly Nigerian dwarf goats under the watchful eye of her father, Jimmy Daub.

About 10 miles north of Las Cumbres Ranch, the Mark Richardson Career Technical Education Center and Agricultural Farm provided a different perspective on the county’s agricultural landscape, one focused on cultivating the next generation of farmers.

The center serves as a hands-on learning facility for students from Pioneer Valley, Santa Maria and Righetti high schools, offering programs in farm and animal science, auto and wood shop, culinary arts and child development.

Lucas Rodriguez, a sophomore at Pioneer Valley High School, is raising a pig through the program.

“I actually keep my animal here,” he said. “I’m out here every day and some days also after school if I don’t have football practice.”

Rodriguez raised a pig named Ace this past year and showed him at the Santa Barbara County Fair.

“We have them from March until July,” he said. “The fair is a week long, and after that we auction them and sell them off.”

In the steer pen that served as the petting zoo for Saturday’s event, a small black cow named Honey Bunch grew tired as the day wound down and rested its head on the leg of Righetti High School senior Marley Cortez.

For Cortez, the opportunity to build that kind of bond with an animal is the program’s core value.

“They give us a chance to keep our animals,” she said. “You obviously can’t do that in the city, so it gives people who live there a way to experience it.”

She said the program also forges strong friendships that go beyond the classroom.

“We’re spending so much time with each other,” Cortez said. “We also do competitions, and being out of town with each other just makes us closer.”

Both students see the program as a direct path to their future careers. Cortez, who wants to become a livestock veterinarian, credited FFA competitions with building her confidence.

“We have competitions that involve speaking,” she said. “Our teachers help us be better spoken and more confident.”

Guillermo Guerra, an FFA adviser and teacher at Righetti High with more than 30 years of experience, oversees the students’ work. He expressed immense pride in their ability to run major community events entirely on their own, pointing to the annual Kinder Patch, an event where high school students host local kindergartners and give them free pumpkins they grew themselves.

“That, to me, is even more impressive than what you saw today,” Guerra said.

The program is designed for long-term growth, he said, allowing students to begin in eighth grade and continue for a year after high school. 

“We’ve been working a lot with the other departments to align curriculum and also with Hancock [College],” Guerra said.

This engagement enables dedicated members to achieve the American FFA degree, which he called “the highest honor that the FFA awards.”

For Rodriguez, his passion for agriculture and FFA is something he carries with him at all times, whether he’s working on the farm or not.

“I always like to think I’m not just representing when I’m in the jacket, but also outside of it,” he said. “I always try to be the one not always in the spotlight, doing the behind-the-scenes work, that’s what people see.”