Small farmers struggle against the current to stay organic

Latino farmers face significant challenges and swim against the tide to maintain sustainable agriculture and harvest healthy, organic produce.

Antonia Vega, a small farmer with her business Dulce Organic Farms in Watsonville, CA, harvests strawberries without the use of pesticides or chemicals, allowing them to ripen at their exact time, but faces daily challenges such as money to maintain her work.

In addition, due to lack of resources, his land is irregular and is on a hillside, which complicates his struggle to maintain his organic production, taking care of the environment and health because he has to allocate work and resources to avoid landslides.

She says that the consequences of a landslide are very costly, which is why she sometimes prefers to stop eating to buy the sacks that would prevent a landslide.

Despite these challenges, Antonia Vega says she is committed to her work to harvest sweet and healthy organic strawberries.

On her land, Antonia Vega practices climate resilience, such as innovative techniques to care for the soil, using cover crops, diverse production systems and using compost to keep her crops free of chemicals.

Antonia Vega sells produce to a company that buys her harvest and pays her after 40 days, but she wants to try to sell to the end consumer so that she can explain her planting and harvesting process and they can enjoy her fruit.

Antonia Vega calls on people to support small Latino farmers who care and grow their products taking care of the land and the health of the people.

On Facebook her page is Dulce farm to support small organic farmers

Antonia Vega says they do it to improve the environment. Also, they would like to get into the school market and she can give that healthy food as she does with her children.

This is made in part of the “Cuando se seca el Arroyo” series, funded in part by The Walton Family Foundation.