In 2004, I was picked by the Slow Food Napa Valley convivium as a delegate to the Terra Madre conference of food producers in Torino, Italy, where I met fellow bean growers from around the world. Trading seeds and ideas enabled me to share my enthusiasm about New World foods. I'm also the founder of the newly formed Family Farm League, a grassroots advocacy group that encourages and promotes the growing of food in the otherwise monoculture of wine in the Napa Valley. Rancho Gordo is actively involved with Local Harvest, a massive web resource for small growers and their customers, and a member of the Community Alliance With Family Farms

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Press coverage of Rancho Gordo has been plentiful, no doubt in part due to the colorful beans themselves. Recent articles on Rancho Gordo in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chow, Sunset, Country Home, San Francisco Chronicle, and Chile Pepper have all contributed to the groundswell of interest in heirloom beans.

I'm lucky enough to travel throughout Mexico and Central America searching for unique and rare legumes and herbs. These samples are brought back to Rancho Gordo where they are grown in trial gardens. The resulting yield is either saved for seed or grown on the Sacramento Delta for production. All bean production is in Northern California. Sourcing quinoa and amaranth led me to a cooperative of Bolivian farmers who hand-harvest the Rancho Gordo products.