Welcome to Season 2 of Raising Kale! In Season 1, I asked our guests what listeners like you can do to become "Kale Raisers" and improve your own communities. Their #1 answer? Eat local and get to know your farmers. So, in Season 2, Farmers & Families, I’ll be talking to more farmers. We’ll learn about what they’re growing, and how they’re innovating, and what they’re doing to improve their communities in addition to feeding people. 

We start Season 2 in America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital, Sacramento, California. Our farmer, Sara Bernal, works on an urban farm that’s run by the nonprofit, Center for Land-Based Learning.  

Urban farming takes place in cities on small plots, not in the country. The average farm size in America in 2012 was 434 acres! But the majority of urban farms are just 5 acres or less. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, a quarter of the world’s urban population gets their food from urban farms. 15% of the world’s food is grown in cities. As more and more of the world’s population lives in cities, our food supply and our farmers are moving there, too. 

Urban farmers like Sara Bernal are keenly aware of the needs of their communities and are not only growing food to feed them, but also rising up to meet social needs like hunger.

Sara Bernal is a farmer, a community activist, a rad human, and a true Kale Raiser! She has lived and worked around the world from Bangladesh to Italy, but it’s in West Sacramento, California where she’s transforming her community through food. She’s the program manager for the nonprofit Center for Land-Based Learning, where she runs an urban farm program that trains new farmers, feeds the hungry, and tirelessly makes the world a better place.