Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
COACHELLA, California – The Coachella Valley is a diverse place, with soaring temperature extremes, underground mineral water aquifers, and abundant sunshine.
For the small Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, it is the tribe’s native land, and they are using those resources to forge a future that connects with their integrity, unity and family through Temalpakh Farm.
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Just down the road from the tribe’s Augustine Casino, the farm’s well-tended operation on 50 acres produces an abundance of chard, kale, celery, butternut squash, and four kinds of dates, a major crop for the region.
The farm, which got its start about 10 years ago, draws its name from the Cahuilla word meaning “from the Earth.” All products are organic, local, sustainable and grown without the use of pesticides or chemicals.
“Starting an organic farm was my mom’s idea,” Ronnie Vance, a tribal council member, told ICT, sitting in the shaded landscaped courtyard of the Temalpakh Farm store.
“She wanted the tribe to be self-sufficient,” Vance said. “We have a 3-megawatt solar field that produces power for the Augustine Casino and for the farm, and we have water rights for the aquifer. So, we have water, we have power, we have the casino for revenue.”
The federally recognized tribe has only 19 citizens, but the casino provides employment for about 400 people, according to the tribe’s website.
Leaders decided they wanted to provide food as well.
“We thought, ‘We live here, so we need to have our own food,’” Vance said. “And Native people have been stewards of the land since prehistoric time. Why don’t we cultivate our own land, enrich the soil, give back to the Earth, the nature of the environment and our surrounding community? It was the next logical step.”
Cultivating the land
The Cahuilla people are the first known inhabitants of Coachella Valley near what is now Palm Springs, California. The Augustine Band is one of nine Cahuilla nations, which have a total population of about 3,000, according to the tribal website.
In generations past, the tribe would hunt and gather, cultivate the mesquite trees, and grow beans. It was a hybrid survival dependent on the seasons, animals and water access.
For Temalpakh Farm, tribal members had to learn what works in the local soil, and how to rotate crops to enrich the soil.
“We started with dates from the date palms,” Vance said. “We now have four varieties: Zahidi, Medjool, Deglet Noor and Barhi. They all have different tastes. Medjool are the sweetest and most popular. Then for our crops, we do seasonal crops, whatever’s best for the weather condition.”
A new shade structure was recently installed, with large sheets of dark cloth stretching over and above the more delicate crops and protecting them from the searing heat of the desert sun, which routinely hits over 100 degrees from spring to early fall.
“With the new shade structure, we extended our summers, but July and August, they’re just heat waves, so there is nothing in the land,” Vance said.
A 10-person team runs the farm. A small staff of clerks run the market, which sells produce, a line of shirts, hats and mugs, and makes smoothies and coffee drinks.
A scenic outlook located on a hill is surrounded with art made of painted tires, cut and flattened into the shape of feathers. Benches let visitors take in the stunning surrounding view of fields and snow-capped mountains.
“We’re a small team,” Vance said. “We like to run more efficiently, with more effectiveness. So, the smaller, the better, less problems.”
The tribe benefits in many ways, Vance said.
“Just to have good food for our tribal members and to have it for the surrounding communities, and the real benefit is to know that we are doing something for the health of the people,” she said. “Making it affordable and to make sure that we steward our lands so we don’t have any brush fires, which can cause big problems out here.”
Protecting the land is also important.
“We make sure that our soil doesn’t erode away,” Vance said. “This is our land, so we might as well do our part and make it beautiful and make it beneficial to everybody.”
Looking ahead
The farm store, which is open daily, will be joining the nearby Indio Certified Farmer’s Market in Indio, California, starting in January, with plans to extend to other surrounding farmer’s markets.
Customers can shop in the store and order weekly boxes of produce. Some items are also available online, and plans are in the works for home delivery.
The farm has also expanded to provide wholesale products to local restaurants, including the stylish Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, Café 54 at the Augustine Casino, and to a new restaurant in Morongo Basin called Spaghetti Western, an Italian-themed eatery in a former saloon nightclub.
And when the Ace Hotel becomes the information headquarters for the upcoming Desert X art event, when it opens its biannual run March 4, Temalpakh Farm will be hosting one of the installations in the rotunda entrance.
“We’re excited about that,” Vance said. “It will bring a lot of people through here. We’re trying to be more involved with the Coachella Valley and let the community know we’re here and that we want to engage.”
The Coachella Valley area is booming with housing developments and people relocating away from Los Angeles, but services have not kept up. Vance said the tribe can help.
“The city of Coachella is really focused on food insecurity right now, so we’ve been talking to them. They’re getting some grants so that we can help provide organic produce at a very low cost to families in Coachella,” she said.
For the Cahuilla people — who are committed to the value and vision revered by their ancestors — farms, sustainability, jobs, community support and outreach are built in. They live and run their business modestly, not believing in excess.
“Really we are honored to work on behalf of our people, the community and the region as well as all generations yet to come,” Vance said.
More info
Temalpakh Farm, an organic farm run by the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, operates six days of week at 1 Roberta Way in Coachella, California. It is open Monday through Thursday and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Some items and merchandise are available online, and farm boxes can be ordered online for curbside pickup. For more information, visit the website.
*Correction: The Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians no longer owns Synergy Blue, a casino-software company, and the tribe now has 19 citizens. Those details were incorrect in an earlier version of the story.
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