Tulare County Sheriff’s farm feeds inmates, saving $1M a year

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KGPE/KSEE) – As prices rise at the grocery store, one agency who has not felt the increase is the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office. 

The inmates at the Tulare County Jail are fed from a county-owned farm. Inmates help operate the farm, collecting thousands of eggs every day and butchering cows and pigs for the jail kitchen. 

“Our meals here that are furnished are excellent,” Farm Manager Gary Bird said. 

The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office turned the 1,100-acre plot into a working farm more than 30 years ago. Everything they grow and raise goes right to the jail. 

“Wintertime is cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Summertime is tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, jalapenos, bell peppers, watermelons, pretty much everything,” Bird said. 

Tulare County is the only county in California with a farm worked by the inmates for the inmates. 

“We’re saving over $1,000,000 a year when it comes to our meat, when it comes to our eggs,” Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said. 

The farm does not only save tax dollars, it also gives inmates the opportunity to turn their lives around.

“They become certified butchers. They learn land management. They also learn animal care and a little bit of animal science. And so there’s a benefit to the inmate who comes through, works the farm and is able to go back into a community where we are predominantly agricultural based anyway,” Boudreaux said. 

After the inmates eat their hard-earned meals, they scrape the leftovers into trash bags to be cooked and recycled as food for the pigs. 

Bird says the county does not spend any money to feed them.

Taking care of a farm that size is a big responsibility, but Boudreaux says fresh air and hard work sets inmates on a better path for the future.