Our Story

I grew up in the heart of San Francisco, far from the kind of land where food grows in the ground and life follows the seasons. As a African American kid in the city, I didn’t have a family farm to inherit or generations of agricultural knowledge to lean on. But I was curious. I wanted something real, a way to live closer to the earth and know how to take care of myself and the people I love if the world ever stopped turning the way it does.

When I bought this ranch in Grass Valley, it wasn’t about business, it was about building a safety net. I wanted a place where we could grow our own food, raise our own cattle, and create something that could last no matter what. I didn’t come from farming, but I immersed myself in it, learning from traditional farmers through books, research, and every conversation I could find. I wanted to understand the soil, the plants, the animals, and how they all work together.

Machete Farms started with vegetables, fruit trees, and cattle, but as we grew, cannabis became a natural part of the farm. It’s a plant that tells you the story of your soil, and it doesn’t let you cut corners. We took the same closed-loop approach we use for everything else: composting cattle manure, using orchard trimmings, brewing compost teas, and feeding the soil first so the plants could thrive.

This past year, as Nevada County opened the doors for larger-scale legal cultivation, we became one of the first to secure a 40,000 square foot license, a milestone for us as a Black-owned farm and a symbol of how far we’ve come. We don’t just see ourselves as cannabis growers we see ourselves as stewards of this land. Our ponds, our orchard, our bee’s, our cattle, and every microbe in our compost work together to create something healthy, sustainable, and honest.

What started as a dream of self-sufficiency has become so much more. Machete Farms is a place built on curiosity, resilience, and respect for the land. We may not have been born into farming, but we’ve built something worth passing down. And at the heart of it all is one simple truth: all you need is healthy soil.