Robin Taylor, Owner, Suzie’s Farm, Imperial Beach

“My name is Robin Taylor. My company is Suzie’s Farm, and I own it with my wife. We also still own our other farm which is Sungrown Organic Distributors, which was originally started by my father in 1983. I worked with him through that time until he retired in 1996 and that’s when Lucille and I took it over.”

“Suzie’s Farm was started in order to grow local produce for the San Diego area and to provide healthy organic produce. We grew very fast and we are at 160 acres in four years, starting from four acres. We grow maybe 50 different varieties of produce depending on the season. Because we’re a coastal climate, we don’t get too much frost so we can provide produce year round, but we can’t grow tomatoes year round. We still have to follow certain seasons.”

“Sometimes people are used to a perfect head of cabbage or a perfect butternut squash and because we’re not controlling a lot of that with chemicals, we just get what Mother Nature provides us. We don’t always get the top of the line produce and that can be an issue to some people. A lot of grocery store chains want perfect produce. Because we’re a farm that’s producing for a local market, we’re not too worried about grading our produce to perfect sizes.”

“What gets a little more expensive for us is growing in San Diego. Most farms are in areas where farmers can get cheap land and cheap water and we spend a lot of money on water and land in San Diego. So that makes the produce a little more expensive. Local can sometimes be more expensive, along with organic, so it starts adding up. I think if people take a little time and look around where they can buy the produce, they can find deals on organic produce. There’s a lot bigger companies going into organics because more and more people want it, so prices will start coming down as more and more people are demanding it.”

“Since we began the farm, a lot of people sent us emails and requests to come and work on the farm. Because we’re in California and California has pretty strict worker laws, we’re not allowed to let people come and volunteer, so we started an intern program where they get paid a minimum wage just to come and work on the farm and get a little experience. What we have done in the past is a six month program. We’ll hire four people and they basically get to do all the work we do on the farm – planting and harvesting. They prep for events, they help with the tours. Sometimes they work in the office, so they get the full experience of what it means to work on a farm.”