GRANGE RETURNS TO ITS ROOTS: AS MEMBERSHIP GROWS, CLUB MELDS ITS LONG HISTORY WITH NEW, GREENER FARMING

The Sebastopol Grange is getting greener, and the little Grange Hall at the edge of town on Highway 12 is becoming a hotbed of change.

From perhaps a dozen new members a year, Sebastopol Grange had 80 people join in the past year and almost as many the year before. And not all fit the stereotypical mold.

When the previous grange master, 18-year-old Joe Stefenoni, had to leave for college, he was replaced by Lawrence Jaffee, a retired farmer and one of the newer grange members.

Steffenoni, who is planning to study agriculture, said he was happy to see so many active members. "I learned a lot about leadership while I was grange master," he said, "and got practical experience in multi-tasking, keeping all the balls in the air at once."

While the grange may have been thought of as a staid old institution, that's not how it started. It began as a populist, revolutionary organization and is now finding its way back to its progressive and agrarian roots.

The movement started in the South in 1867 to help farmers assist each other, but it soon became clear that so many men had been killed, women and young teens were doing most of the farming.

While women didn't get the right to vote until 1920, right from the start they could vote and hold office in the grange. Youth 14 years and older had the same rights.

Western granges fought battles, sometimes literally, with the railroads because the monopolies gouged farmers for shipping their goods to market.

Through the years, the granges devolved into social clubs, but that's rapidly changing now, said Rick Keel, public relations director of the state grange.

A new young breed of farmers have joined, many of them using organic methods and creating customers with Community Supported Agriculture.

CSAs bring produce and other farm products to subscribers' homes, making old fashioned small family farming profitable again.

Keel said this is happening in many places all over the state.

Jaffe joined the grange two years ago, saying, "I had farmed until my retirement but had been too busy to join. Then I saw a disabled fellow trying to paint the Grange Hall, and I decided I better join and help out."

"It was a wonderful feeling on election night to have enough members to fill every office, and 78 people to cast ballots," said Martha Stefenoni, Joe's mother and a lifelong Grange member.

"What's really wonderful is that the new members all seem to respect the grange tradition and want to learn more about grange history."

Paul Kaiser, who runs Singing Frogs Farm behind Ragle Ranch Park with his wife Elizabeth, is a recent Grange member. He has 120 CSA subscribers and practices French Intensive agriculture.

"I have nine acres, a little over three of it in crops," he said. "I have 200 chickens, 50 ducks, goats, sheep, and a llama. I am proving my method of agriculture can turn a profit.

"It has been great to meet the farmers in my community."

One thing hasn't changed about the Grange: When members meet, food plays a starring role.

"Our pancake breakfasts now feature all locally grown food, except for the maple syrup, and we are trying to find a New England Grange farmer to supply that," said Jaffe.

The Grange has partnered with Transitions, an international group, to provide "reskilling" workshops where people can share knowledge about anything from cheese making to wood carving.

"Climate change is happening, and our food producers need to be ready for it," Jaffe said.

Even the Grange Hall, built with volunteer labor on donated land back in the 1950s, is getting greener. Brock Dolman, a new member and permaculture teacher at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, led a workshop about how to draw up a landscaping plan for the barren two and half acres that surround the Grange.

"We've already held a volunteer planting day and put in 50 trees, so we're starting to implement it," said Jaffe.

"If you are thinking about joining, come to the potluck dinner at 6:30 the last Tuesday of each month, and you can check it out."