Illness and Disaster Recovery Fund for Torres Organic Farm

My name is Carlos Gonzales Torres. My wife Leticia and I run Torres Organic Farm, a 7-acre organic vegetable farm in Salinas, CA. We are asking for your support to help us recover from a combination of illness and storms that have devastated our business since 2022, so that we can start new on a stable parcel in Watsonville.

Both Leticia and I are from Hidalgo, Mexico, where we grew up working in agriculture with our families. When I was young, my father sent me to study with a mechanic, but I left that job because I loved working in agriculture and being in el campo. When I immigrated to the US in 1999, I found work in the strawberry and artichoke fields. In 2016, I had the opportunity to start my own farm business by participating in the Farmer Education Course at the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), an organization that helps beginning farmers. From 2016 to 2022, Leticia and I ran a successful organic vegetable farm, with stable income that we used to support ourselves and our kids who are now in high school and college.

In March of 2022, I began to experience a burning sensation in my chest and back. The sensation was so intense that I could not walk and had to stay in bed for two months. The doctors did not seem to have much insight; they said that the problem had to do with my tendons and that it would take a few months for me to recover. During those first two months, I couldn’t even visit the farm. Leticia tried to do the work without me, and we hired two employees to help during that time, but we were quickly losing money by paying for hired labor. After those two months, I was able to visit the farm again but I was too weak to do anything – I still could barely walk, and I was unable to lift anything that weighed even a couple of pounds. All I could do was watch as everything we had planted went to waste in the field.

Finally, after 6 months of illness, I was able to work again. In fall of 2022, Leticia and I got a loan so that we could buy transplants and we replanted our fields. We had one good harvest, but we had no idea that it was going to be such a hard winter. In January and February 2023, our farm – like so many others – was destroyed by big storms which waterlogged our plants and turned them all yellow. As a result, we have lost several thousands of dollars invested in planting 7 acres and the opportunity to generate enough income to maintain our operation and family. We patiently held out hope that we would get support from the government, but now that we are halfway through 2024, we cannot wait any longer.

Yet, amidst this hardship, a glimmer of hope has appeared. We have been offered the chance to lease land in Watsonville. For us, this opportunity is more than just a plot of land—it's the promise of stability and a future that we can build upon. Unfortunately, we lack the capital to invest in the necessary plants and infrastructure at this new site. Without these resources, we may have to decline this offer, and with it, our dream.

We are humbly asking for your support to help us make this transition. Your contribution, no matter the size, will directly impact our ability to keep our farm alive. It will give us the chance to continue growing food for our community, to preserve our heritage, and to keep the dream alive for small-scale farmers like us.

Growing regeneratively is a priority for us.

Please, see this video to learn about our efforts:

Roadmap to an Organic California