Soil Born Farms cut the ribbon on Saturday, August 1, on a 3,700-square-foot Animal Barn at its American River Ranch, capping off a project nearly a decade in the making. The earth-sheltered structure, tucked into the landscape with a vegetated rooftop overlook, gives the Rancho Cordova nonprofit its first dedicated space for housing livestock, complete with animal pens, a chicken coop, a rabbitry, tool and hay storage, an ADA-accessible sloped walkway and a visitor welcome area.
The $2.9 million facility was nearly ten years in planning, permitting and construction before its grand opening, according to the Rancho Cordova Independent. Funding came together in early 2025 through a combination of the City of Rancho Cordova’s Community Enhancement & Investment Fund, Sacramento County, and a $2,012,000 grant awarded in August 2024 by the California Wildlife Conservation Board, which drew on Proposition 68 dollars through the Lower American River Conservancy Program. The barn’s builders designed it to sit below the surrounding orchards specifically to protect scenic views across the American River Parkway, the outlet reports.
Soil Born Farms operates on a 55-acre parcel at 2140 Chase Drive that it leases from Sacramento County, land the nonprofit describes as permanently protected. As the Sacramento Bee notes, the ranch already includes vegetable fields, fruit orchards, greenhouses, a native plant nursery, an herb garden, produce stands and a restored creek — and now a small flock of sheep and chickens that the new barn is built to support.
A Decade of Planning Meets a New Generation of Farmers
The barn’s completion opens the door for Cordova High School’s Agriculture Academy to expand the farm’s animal flocks, according to the Bee. Students in the school’s Future Farmers of America program will now be able to house and raise livestock directly on-site, per the Rancho Cordova Independent’s reporting, sparing individual families the cost of building shelters in suburban backyards — a barrier that urban and suburban students raising farm animals frequently run into…