Pura Nelida Farm: Success, Acre by Acre
“God is watching what we are doing and increasing our sales. Thanks to God, I can’t complain.”
A bumper crop of tomatoes taught Nelida Martinez an important lesson.
When the founder of Pura Nelida Organic Produce raised more tomatoes than planned, she realized that she knew how to grow, but not how to sell.
“I didn’t know what to ask, so I was selling big bags of tomatoes for two dollars,” she remembers.
Nelida has been growing vegetables since she was a girl in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. After nurturing many large gardens in California, Nelida and her family moved to Mount Vernon. A 10’ x 10’ foot plot in a community garden turned into a quarter-acre piece of land and those fateful tomatoes.
Enrolling in the training program offered by the non-profit incubator Viva Farms was her first step toward gaining management and marketing skills. Renting land from Viva, she cultivated one acre, then two, then four and six. She began selling her produce through Viva’s subscription Community-Supported Agriculture boxes and farm stand as well as the Mount Vernon Farmer’s Market.
“I gave myself completely to my garden,” she says. “I got up at 5 in the morning and came home at 10 at night because I loved watching the plants grow and produce things.”
She starts her plants in a greenhouse. Tender greens like lettuce and basil open her growing season, with juicy Albion strawberries following. Later, her customers enjoy basil and cilantro, chard and collards, hearty brassicas, and the tomatillos and chiles so essential for Oaxacan cooking.
While her farm grew quickly, sales still lagged. When she was making just $10,000 a year, her husband suggested she get a job. She refused. They struck a deal: he would make house payments; she would use her earnings to buy a small tractor and other equipment to farm more efficiently.
Adding land and increasing crop yields brought a new challenge. To sell everything she raised on what was now 14 acres, Nelida would need to enter the wholesale market. Which meant attracting the attention of big buyers like grocery stores and hospitals that might not want to deal with a small grower, even if they liked her produce.
Not to mention she would rather tend her farm than make phone calls.
Supplementing her sales through Viva Farms by joining the Puget Sound Food Hub offered a solution.
The farmer-owned coop Food Hub makes it simple for wholesale customers to order from multiple small farmers. The Food Hub calls on large customers and consolidates orders so that customers only have one invoice. Paperwork for farmers is minimal and payment is prompt.
“We are a nice stepping stone for farms like Pura Nelida,” says Food Hub general manager Andrew Yokom. “They get to have their life on the farm and sell wholesale in ways they wouldn’t be able to access with larger distributors, because they are not big enough or don’t have the experience to reach those channels.”
Through the Food Hub, Nelida has developed a supportive customer base. The produce buyer for all 13 Haggen grocery stores is a big fan of her strawberries.
“They are flavorful and hold up well on the shelf—the ideal grocery store strawberry. As long as they are in stock with her, they are at Haggen” Grocery, says Yokom.
Nelida is excited about developing other products to sell through the Food Hub. She’s experimenting with some cherry tomato varieties and has been cultivating Saskatoon berries, which she says look like blueberries but grow quickly and are very high in antioxidants.
At summer solstice, the Pura Nelida farm is busy. With friends and family, Nelida is planting, harvesting and weeding up to 16 hours a day. When pulled, weeds are left between rows to attract worms and serve as mulch. Friends and family members who pitch in to fill big orders are paid in vegetables and berries. Her grandson likes putting the labels on boxes that go to the Food Hub twice a week.
Nelida is also looking for land of her own where she can experiment with more varieties and turn her talents to perennial crops like blueberries. Few landowners want to lease land for the 10 to 15 years it takes for blueberry plants to mature.
At the moment, purchasing suitable, affordable land seems like an impossible dream, but Nelida is not discouraged.
“God is watching what we are doing and increasing our sales,” she says. “Thanks to God, I can’t complain.”
Story and photos by Anne Basye: info@skagitonians.org