Minoru Farm
Minoru Farm in Adams, Colorado, was awarded a Zero Foodprint Restore Grant for compost application, windbreak establishment, mulching, and cover cropping.
Jade Sato loves a Challenge
In January 2020, Jade Sato set out to start her first farm. She had spent the previous six years working for multiple growers simultaneously, preparing physically and mentally for the long hours and demanding work of this moment. She had launched a Kickstarter, secured land, and planned her crops. But by March, the world had halted to the COVID-19 pandemic, and her vision felt nearly impossible. “Should I give everybody’s money back? What are we doing? Is everyone okay?”
To quote Jade, “it was weird.”
Despite the lockdown, isolation, and uncertainty, she launched Minoru Farm with just 5 CSA members that season, and secured additional acres and support in 2021. A self-described workaholic, Jade loves a challenge and has worked to scale the farm’s community impact for the past four years. Today, Minoru covers 9 acres in Adams, Colorado, and supplies fresh ingredients to Sato’s culturally diverse local community. She focuses on growing a wide diversity of vegetables common throughout Eastern and Southern Asia, and delights in experimenting with new varieties each season. In her words, she “grows food with flavor.”
Continuing Tradition
Four years after the farm’s launch, Minoru supplies vegetables to both farmers markets and restaurants around Colorado, including participants from Mile High Asian Food Week which she cites as a rewarding experience.
The farm is named after Jade’s grandfather, whose Japanese and Buddhist name is “Minoru.” He settled in Colorado after the war and ran a flower shop and nursery, where Jade grew up watering huge greenhouses full of plants. They’d open up shops in empty lots around Littleton, “pop-up style” (long before that term became popularized from Mission Street Food). Now, Minoru Farm continues her family’s intergenerational passion for agriculture and provides ways for Jade to reconnect with her ancestry and culture.
Finding new opportunities
Minoru Farm was recently awarded a Zero Foodprint Restore Grant for compost application, windbreak establishment, mulching, and cover cropping - practices that will grow better food and help restore the climate through carbon sequestration. Although these practices are understood to support a wide range of environmental and nutritional benefits, many growers struggle to access the funding, resources, and labor to implement them sustainably. For Jade, ZFP’s grant application process was a breath of fresh air:
“Grant writing is not my forte. I'm really bad at it. But then when I looked at this grant, it seemed more like practical questions … It seemed a lot more supportive. I wish there were more grants [like this] out there that were super accessible for other farms. And more grants that also continue over time. That would be cool to see.”
Implementing these practices has helped Jade continue deepening her relationship with the earth. Rather than growing food through extractive processes, Minoru Farm Farm is cultivating a community with both people and the planet.
About Minoru Farm
Denver area residents can find Minoru at City Park Farmers Market every Saturday from 8am-1pm at the City Park Esplanade.
You can also taste some of their veggies at Denver restaurantYuan Wonton.
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Zero Foodprint awards grants for projects that take carbon out of the atmosphere and put it back where it belongs: in the earth, creating healthy soil and better food. To do this, we focus on regenerative farming practices like composting, cover cropping, and managed grazing that can restore life to our soil while removing carbon from the atmosphere. Together, we have the power to grow more nutritious food, heal natural water cycles, and create habitat for biodiversity to thrive. Explore previously funded projects to see what this might look like on your farm.
For more information, read through other Restore Grant FAQs.oes here
Zero Foodprint (ZFP) is a nonprofit organization restoring the climate, one acre at a time. We believe that by regenerating soil, local food economies can play a critical role in reversing the global climate crisis. We work with food and beverage businesses, philanthropy, and government to bring the next dollar to implement the next regenerative practice on the next acre. This regenerative economy benefits every person who grows food, every person who sells food, and every person on this planet who eats food.
