Make the Farm a Showplace

It’s too bad that Friends of Pierce College Farm are being blasted by the administration (Oct. 25).

With imagination and vision, this deteriorating farm can become a showplace of the Western world.

Financially, it can be very profitable, a great asset to the school and community, a market for the freshest fruits and vegetables and eggs, a restaurant serving these products along with chickens from the farm, an herb shop, a florist shop with flowers and house plants, a hothouse for cymbidiums and orchids, a frozen-food store.

Perhaps several acres can be set aside or a model farm typical of early days in the Valley, like those envisioned by the early founders of the nearby Winnetka colony.

With emphasis on natural pest control (as opposed to poisonous pesticides) and liberal composting, students will become national experts in the most advanced methods.

Creative professors will instruct future leaders in the biodynamic, French intensive arts of gardening, which produce four times more vegetables per acre than the outdated chemical and mechanical systems now in use. Demonstration lots with water-saving methods of irrigation (e.g., drip) and drought-resistant plantings will inspire Southwesterners.

Valley residents will flock to courses in square-foot gardening, to transform their back yards into productive plots.

Here future executives will learn finance, marketing, management of shops and restaurants and much more.

Groups of all ages will tour this soon-to-be famous magical Farm.

Isn’t this preferable to the college’s leasing its land to religious groups or selling it off for crowded apartments and skyscrapers?

RUTH LORING

Calabasas