Farm Success with Methods You Might Not Expect featuring Yosef Camire (FSFS128)

FSFS128_YosefCamire

Diego: [00:00:00] You've heard of the back to Eden method of gardening. And you've heard about farmers using a pay what you want model. Both of those sound great in theory, or on a small scale or for a nonprofit, but do they actually work in reality for a commercial farm? You're going to find out the answer to that in this one with Yosef Camire of Ahavah farm.

Welcome to the world of farming, small farming, smart. I'm your host, Diego. Today, I'm going up to 7,000 feet elevation in Colorado to talk to a farmer who's doing some things differently. He's somebody who's followed his ideology with his commercial farming operation to create the farm that he wanted to see in the world.

He's doing it while raising a family, he's doing it in a very poor local food scene and he's doing it no, till using the back to Eden gardening method. And one of the primary ways that he sells his product is through a farmer's market where he has a pick your price pay, which you want model. It might not sound possible.

But Yosef Camire of Ahavah farm has made it work. If you think about those two things back to Eden gardening, it can't be done on a production scale. here's somebody showing that it can be done on a production scale because Joseph's farming on just under an acre, his farms grossing around $160,000 a year.

And the wood chip method popularized in the back to Eden gardening method is actually covering a lot of his beds on that land base. The other thing that he's doing that's really unique is a pay what you can or pay what you want model at the farmer's market. And when you first hear that, you may think, well as a farmer, you're going to get screwed on everybody that comes up to the booth.

But as you'll hear in this one, that's not the case. Now while Yosef followed his ideology, using methods like this, to create the farm that he wanted to see in the world. Keep in mind that he did all this with a family. So it wasn't just him as some single person taking this on. He did this with a family to support. It's an inspiring episode and there's a lot in here. Let's jump right into it with Yosef Camire of Ahavah farm.

Hey, Yosef, you're farming at 7,000 feet in Colorado. It doesn't seem like a lot would be possible at that elevation. What is possible?

Yosef Camire: [00:02:56] it's interesting. You say that it's actually, not only is it 7,000 feet, but we regularly get, 100 plus mile per hour winds. We have a very short growing season. We have some of the worst ground in the country. it's really not a good place to grow. but with the proper techniques, care, love, a lot of research, and by doing things regenerative really, by building the soil by using the right technology, like hoop houses, You can grow a lot of things.

We grow 75 different varieties of produce and, we grow beautiful produce and constantly being told that your, our produce is the most beautiful they've ever seen anywhere now, whole foods, whatever, whatever the name of the store, whatever the market, whatever the farm. And if I can do it, that's the thing. If I can do it. Anybody can do it. you can grow anywhere. we, there's all these farming stories of, successful stories in the Northeast, or in Canada or in California and, or in the South Florida or whatever. and people think, I can't do it here. You can do it here. You can do it anywhere.

Diego: [00:04:05] In your situation, what drew you to the location where you're at now, here in that. A hundred mile per hour winds, bad soil conditions that elevation I know from emailing you, it's a remote market. How'd you end up there.

Yosef Camire: [00:04:21] you're going to get a kick out of this. So we've only lived here at this house for three years and about two months. And, prior to three years, and two months ago, I had zero, inkling zero, dreams, nothing about farming. I barely knew how to grow a tomato, and so we just, we ended up here because we have a big family and we wanted a place, for our kids to run.

And a place for our kids to explore and get out of the city. Really the reason why we moved here was because it was cheap. We got 40 acres, we got a, a mobile home and a barn, three bedroom, mobile home, two bath, whatever, not that big 1200 square feet. So like $127,000. Now mind you, there was literally no kitchen.

The plumbing, electrical, roof, all that stuff. None of it works. So we had to do a lot of work, but basically we moved here because it was affordable and a way for our family to thrive our children, our young children. so farming was not on our agenda. I'm an engineer by trade and, one thing led to another. I'm sure we'll talk about it, but that's it. I'm here, so we might as well make it work.

Diego: [00:05:34] How do you balance out the land I can afford with the potential of making it work as an operation that can support you. So in a perfect world, in a vacuum, you can probably pick the ideal piece of land to give your enterprise the best shot.

And a lot of times, that's going to be expensive. The trade off. Of giving up ideal, close to a certain area, perfectly flat, nice soil. All those types of things is you have to go further out or go to a different part of the country someplace more remote there's smaller markets. When you looked at cheap land versus market opportunity, how did you weigh that out when you're making that decision?

Yosef Camire: [00:06:18] I didn't. it's interesting because I do a lot of reading. have to do a lot of reading. I didn't know. I didn't know how to grow a tomato three years ago. so I've read, Oh, somewhere around 40 books. I've listened to lots and lots of podcasts and done lots of research. And consistently, I'm constantly hearing about, finding the right property, finding the right land. And like you said, that can be a very expensive venture. I don't think it needs to be, I don't think that, there's a couple of things you obviously don't want. You don't want a house on top of the Hill.

Great, where there's no flat land. It, can you make it work? You can. they do it over in Asia and stuff like that all the time. just, building off the Hills, you don't want, and you want to make sure that you have water access to water. Other than that, you can, if you're willing to put the, the labor into it, the sweat equity, I think you can make any piece of land work.

No, we've, it's taken a lot of money, to be honest with you and a lot of work to get, our farm up and running. And that includes, many thousands of dollars. I'm talking somewhere around $25,000 worth of compost. that we brought in from, the local from a local, place here, down the street from here.

And, we worked on in the soil. The other thing that we did was we, we cover everything with wood chips. we do the back to Eden, method, commercial scale. And I hear people all the time saying, Oh, it's not viable. Yes, it is. And, I'm not sure if we'll talk about financials, but, I don't know how to say it, we're killing it.

we really are killing it. We only have one acre of land. we have 40, we own 40, we only cultivate and, and farm on one acre, almost exactly square footage. And, we regrew over 40,000 pounds of food this year. on that one acre. And, and we crushed it and we did that regenerative with compost without using chemicals with, using mulches, without using plastic and, putting in some faculty work and that's sometimes what it takes. And I think you could do that on any piece of land.

Diego: [00:08:25] we'll touch on a lot of that. And there's a lot of areas that really intrigued me in there. If we go back to day one, you arrive on this 40 acres. And you see it. What were the steps you put in place to take it from where it was to where it is today? You mentioned the importation of a lot of compost beyond that. What did you have to do to take this piece of land that otherwise might've not been seen as desirable the farm on to turn it into the market garden that it is today?

Yosef Camire: [00:08:57] it was very organic. and I don't mean that in the agricultural sense. Like I said, we moved here. We didn't think about farming and what we wanted to homestead. We want to grow our own food. So we mowed a, a really big plot is about a quarter acre and we tilled it. And, and then what we did was we took, gosh, I don't remember how many yards of mulch at that point.

but we put six inches of mulch over the entire thing and let it sit there over the winter, and watered it in. And that was the first step. And then in the spring time by then I had done all the reading and I, we decided long story, but we decided, Hey, let's start a small farm. And, that was gonna be on the side, but so we trucked in compost.

we told it in the first year. And, and then we just did the back of the Eaton method. We pulled the mulch back over on top of the rows planted in them. and that's it. it wasn't like, It was really, it was just moving the compost, moving the mulch, having a little bit of patience over the winter to let us sit there.

And it's basically the same thing as doing a tarping only it's better because you're actually bringing organic matter in for, with the mulch and having the microbes in the worms come up and eat that, to break it down and bring it down in the soil. but there wasn't, there's not a lot of, No science to it. It wasn't like we brought in tractors, we didn't bring any backhoes in. It was nothing. That was it.

Diego: [00:10:24] In terms of the back to Eden method, for people that aren't familiar with, that method, it�s wood chips, essentially covering all soil and then planting into the woodchips. And that creates a beneficial environment for plants to grow on.

One reason that I think a lot of commercial growers see that as not efficient or working is the wood chips are in the way you can direct seed into wood chips. They typically aren't conducive to dense plantings. How have you taken this method that a lot of homesteaders use and applied that on a practical scale for a commercial farm? Can you give an example of what a bed might look like using this, that isn't like a wide space crop, like tomatoes.

Yosef Camire: [00:11:16] Sure. So it's actually not pointing directly into the wood chips. I think that's a misnomer that people have, especially in the movie back to Eden, he doesn't explain it very well. But if you actually did the research and Paul, I don't remember his last name, but the back of Eden guy, He has, like an addendum to the movie and he says, no, you don't plant directly in which plant with soil below the, which, if you pull it, you pull the witches back, you plant in the soil and then you pull the wood chips back over, once the plant comes up.

So we do a, it's not a full back to Eden method, because we do 30 inch beds, just like a or Curtis stone or whatever. and we do dense planting, we'll do. five to seven rows of carrots in a 30 inch bed, et cetera. Now, what we do is we actually rake it back. we direct seed and then, if it's something like carrots, or something that's a dense, a mesclun mix or something like that, then we're not pulling that mulch back.

We're leaving it in the Isles. we're leaving it there until the winter, right? When, when we're done with the season, we'll pull the mulch back over to the row. but for larger things like, okay, onions now, onion is willing to do three rows per bed. Now we're going to direct. we're gonna transplant those into the bed, at a six inch spacing, three, three bulbs per, per transplant.

And then, Once we transplant those we're pulling the mulch back over most was going to stay there all year. It's going to suppress all the weeds. It's going to build our organic matter. It's going to hold the moisture. And so we don't have to water as much. and then with larger plants, obviously with tomatoes or whatever, we just pull the mulch away, plant the plants, the tomato right in, and that's it. Now in our hoop houses, we don't do the back to Eden method.

Diego: [00:12:58] The question then would be, why do this? I know it builds soil, but the amount of effort in to output out, you must think it justifies it.

Yosef Camire: [00:13:08] that's a really good question. as I said, we didn't start to farm commercially. this was a, a homestead and I didn't know how to grow a tomato. Okay. So it goes back to Eden movie and I thought, wow, that's really cool. Let's do it. How do I answer that question?

Diego: [00:13:26] Knowing you have a family, you're trying to spend as little time potentially in field as possible. If something's adding a whole bunch of work, if you're not necessarily seeing a better result of it, then the question becomes, why do it, so maybe the way to ask this would be, do you think that the results you're seeing are those types of results because you're doing this method?

Yosef Camire: [00:13:51] Absolutely. It sounds like a ton of work. Now, if I were to cover every lettuce plant, then yes, it's a ton of work, but you're talking about loose mulch. That's already in the aisle. you pull it back with a rake.

It takes you 10 minutes to pull a 50, 50 foot bed of mulch into the aisle. you do you're planting, you're transplanting or whatever. with the paper pot now, that's going to take, 10 minutes to transplant the bed. and then you rake the, the mulch back over, in 10 minutes.

So you're talking an extra 20 minutes per bed, maybe and yes. Is that little bit less efficient? Sure. But how long does it take to lay down, fabric? like landscape fabric, or, whatever, ground cover. so instead of doing, green manure, we do much, so green manure, you still have to cut it back.

If the seed, it costs money, all this stuff. there's trade-offs right. to doing cover crops versus doing most now, mulch is actually better. than a cover crop, because we can do a note, a completely no till system. we're not removing anything out of the soil. we're adding to the soil.

So when you add organic matter to the top, like a mulch, you're doing six inches of mulch. that mulch is breaking down and worms and microbes and all the living matter that, organisms that are in the soil are coming up. They're eating, they're using that mulch. they're bringing it down into the soil and they're adding, organic matter to your soil.

They're adding nitrogen and releasing all of the nutrients to your soil, to your plants. so I think it's hugely beneficial. Now on top of that, I'm using one. Fifth of the water. we're actually water negative on our farm, which means that on our, 40 acres of land, we average about 12 inches of rain per year.

And on that 12 inches of rain, over the, the 40 acres, we get 4% of that. Water goes back into our offer, which is 522,000 gallons of water. we use less than an acre foot of water on our farm. So we're actually water negative, which is really unheard of. And the mulching is the reason. Now you can put fabrics, you can use Agra , you can use all types of, who pops is. And we do all those things, but if it wasn't for the mulch, we'd be using two, three, maybe four times as much water to do the same thing. so there's trade offs and everything.

Diego: [00:16:27] Are there crops, you don't think it works well with that method?

Yosef Camire: [00:16:29] Yeah. like I said, we don't pull them on to intensive crops. So like next one next, baby kales, a rubella, carrots, anything that's intensively, grown because that's acting as a cover crop. so we don't use it on those things. I can't really imagine that it would be not beneficial for anything.

It regulates the ground temperature that fabrics can't do. things like tomatoes or really all plants. they like a, an average temperature. They like a more consistent temperature. You can't do that with ground fabrics. Now, granted fabrics can heat up your soil faster earlier in the season, or whatever.

So in that case, you can wait to pull back the molts or some, or wait to push the most back on or something like that. you have to decide, but no, I haven't seen, I know that there are farmers around us that are asking us. Constantly, what are you doing? Why are your plants looking so beautiful?

Why are they so healthy? What do you spray like ranting? And they're like, do you not have grasshoppers? And I'm like, of course I have grasshoppers I'm in Peyton, Colorado. there's millions of them. Of course I do. we just have really healthy, vibrant plants. We don't use any chemicals, nothing. And, I really attribute that to using compost and using mulch.

Diego: [00:17:44] So you have two styles of beds here. You have the intensive planted crops and you have the less intensively planted crops, which have the back to Eden method on them. Let's talk both because both these are done under a no-till scenario, you're integrating a lot of compost. So if you have a bio-intensive bed masculine mix, you go to turn that bed. What's the process?

Yosef Camire: [00:18:10] So the process is, cutting it really low. so getting everything out and then we use all that. We give it to their, to our chickens. and then we will use a stirrup hoe to basically cut off. So I'll pick that. What I'll do is I'll harvest the green with the greens harvester, then I will, we'll process that we'll sell it.

And then there's still two inches or so left. plus some Scragglys, so we'll take the, we'll take the greens harvest or back through, but we'll go down to almost the ground level. and then, that gets most of the, the plant material that's left on the bed. So then we go through with a steerco and then we'll add compost and we will take the pill ther sometimes we'll use it, tilt there, sometimes we won't.

and then we just break it out and then feed right again. it's pretty easy. you're talking 50 foot bed. You can turn over in that way. point about 20. Are you broad fork it at all? Oh yeah. Forgot to mention Brockport. Yeah. And then we'll run the broad fork through, but we don't run the broad fork through every time.

if we're going from, let's say Mescalin mix to radishes or radishes to baby kale or something like that, I'm not going to bring it forward. and I'm probably not gonna add compost, to that either, unless it's been like a five cut masculine mix, if I've cut, if it's been there for a long time, I'll add compost. But, yeah, we will run the broad Fort through. it just depends on what the crop is. typically we'll do it in the fall and we'll do it in the spring. and then we'll try to do it at least one time in the middle of the season. But every time we turn over the beds, no, it's not happening.

Diego: [00:19:41] What about the other style bed, the back to Eden method, you have a less intensively planted crop on it. That crop is done. You go to turn it over. What's the process there?

Yosef Camire: [00:19:51] So what we do is actually we don't pull out the plant, unless we're going to be using it for something specific, like an intensive, crop. what we'll do is we'll actually take some sheers and we'll cut just below the surface.

you will cut that plant off. So we leave all the roots in the ground. and then we'll broad fork it, or we'll pull it back and we'll add compost, or it depends on what we're doing usually. non-intensive crops are usually longer crops, right? They're squashes, they're tomatoes. even cabbages are a little bit longer because we get three, three cuts out of them because we.

We cut the big head and then we allow the little ones to go, which sell like hotcakes, at the end of the season. so we'll leave those beds alone. so we're not really adding compost or doing anything to it. we might broadfork it for the winter. but that's about it. if we're going to put something incentive in there, then we'll pull it back. We'll put some compost and prep the bed, just like I said before, but, typically that's not necessary. So

Diego: [00:20:46] Just for, once it over again, you're going to plant cabbage now into the mulch bed. Run me through that process of planting the cabbage into the bed with the chips.

Yosef Camire: [00:20:57] Pretty easy. you lay the drip tape out, drip tape actually already laid out, which is a cool thing about, by the way about having wood chips over the winter is I don't have to take my drip lines out. I just leave them there. I cover them with mulch. And it's ready to go next season. so w it's pretty easy. You just have the transplant and you just make a little hole. You pull up with chips away, make a little hole, put the, the cabbage in, push the, which ups back, up to the plant.

And that's it. And then that will stay there. most of the season, I'm planting them in what, like April, they head up by the lie. and I cut them and then I put a little X in the root there. I sell the big head and then in another month I'll get four or five or six smaller head that I'll sell for, two to $3 each.

and so that place just stayed there basically the whole season. and then we'll, In the fall, cause I'm not planting outside in the fall. I'm planting into my hoop houses in the fall. we'll just cut it off. Like I said before with the sheers below the surface and give the, all those big leaves and stuff to the chicken and, interesting packages if you market them.

I know a lot of people talk about cabbages, not being profitable. Cabbages are extremely profitable if you do it right, you can sell that. They believe I have. I have chefs that go crazy for stuffed cabbages. And they buy all the big leaves of the cabbage. we just roll them in and put an elastic band on them and so on for, $3 a bunch.

We add them to our CSA customers, which CSA customers love them too, because you just give them a recipe for the, for the stuffed cabbages. And then we sell the big head and then we sell the six, four or six little heads. it's actually quite a profitable crop for us if you use it, You're not just talking about one head. So that's an interesting tidbit there.

Diego: [00:22:40] So I guess when you put in the wood chips on there, they're thin enough, it's a thin enough layer that you can get the transplant down to the native soil. So the roots aren't in the lower layer of woodchips, but thick enough to actually matter and be significant.

Yosef Camire: [00:22:58] it's like making a water dam. so when you homestyle garden, A lot of people, they plant a tomato plant in the dirt and they make a, like a water dam around it. Have you ever seen that happen?

Diego: [00:23:11] Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Yosef Camire: [00:23:12] it's kinda like that only with mulch, right? So I'm not putting six inches of mulch up to the cabbage plant because that would vary the cabbage plant.

I'm making a little bit of a, and it takes two seconds to do. It's not, you're not talking about a long time. You just pull it back. Grow the plant then, and then you're bringing the mulch, up to, but not against the plant. and so it's keeping every, the whole group, all the ground moist now, maybe right up against the plant.

The mulch is not on top of, right up against the plant, but all of the area around it and underneath is all still wet and it's holding and all that moisture.

Diego: [00:23:47] So really, this is going to show starting with a raw site. Everybody thinks, I got to buy this site that has great soil to start with when I think JM in episode, maybe about a year ago, mentioned something along the lines of, you can always build soil and in, he talked about it in terms of costs, he can justify bringing in.

$150 of compost per 100 foot bed. If that bed's going to generate six to a hundred to a thousand dollars worth of revenue over the course of a season that trade off works and hearing what you're saying. it's really the same approach taking the time, which that costs something and then spending the money on the compost has allowed you to take a site that had. Poor agricultural soil and build it to the point where you're grossing a pretty significant amount on the one acre

Yosef Camire: [00:24:47] that's. Correct. And I got to tell you that just came to my mind. So we've only been at for three years, we put the mulch on, wait, like November, three years ago within. Two year and a half to two years, about two years.

I posted a video on my Facebook page of me taking a piece of rebar with a four foot piece of rebar. And I went out to the native soil where I hadn't touched it right next to my garden, like 10 feet from my garden. And I tried to put on the ground and I was standing on a thing. Like it was not, it's not going anywhere.

I brought it into my garden. And so one of my beds. That I had only told one time at the very beginning when I, when I set up the garden and all it all I've done with it since is put mulch on it and compost that's it. And I took that rebar and it just went right through bud light, like going through butter all the way down to my knuckles.

And I don't know how deep it could have gone. And I do soil classes now on our farm and I do this trick with people and it just blows them. What, fabrics or weed fabrics or whatever. we'll never do that for your soil. I attribute it all to the mulch and, again, it's that trade-off right.

you're going to either be weeding or you're going to be putting in weeds fabric or you're going to be putting, much or something. And, it's gotta be one, yes, there's a little bit of weeding with the multiple very little, and it's very rare. And that's for a brand new site now, kind of Chris Moore talks about, tarping something for a whole year and letting it sit there so that you don't have weeds.

I'll tell you, I started in November. put, I just put it through it on, let it there over the winter and I barely had any weeds. I barely am. Have any ever again, I don't need to bring on a skid loader and scrape it all off. I don't need to, flame weed tech, actually, that's probably not a good idea with smoke. You don't want to flame with, but I don't have to weed. My soil is amazing. I have people that come over from other farms and they'd joke about feeling it. they want to put it in their pocket

Diego: [00:26:57] And really, you've listened to this show. You're familiar with. Yeah. The methods of JM, Curtis, Connor, people like that. Is there anything that they're doing that you feel like you can't do given the usage of woodchips?

Yosef Camire: [00:27:14] No. because, I will say this before I started the farm. I didn't even know Curtis stone existed until earlier this year. Or JM Fortier. and I'm kinda glad that I didn't. because I was able to learn things the hard way.

And, I know I've kinda sounds upside down, but true. and I was able to implement things on my own term. but when I did pick up jam 48 book and Curtis zones and all these people, and I listened to you a lot. And, when I've done all these learning of all these, basically urban growers, I realized that boy, a lot of things that they're doing the same things I'm doing.

I don't see anything that they can set that they're doing that I can't do with the exception of maybe, jam Jan day having a hundred million dollar greenhouse. I don't, I'm on one acre and my third year and, we were growing 40,000 pounds this year. We grew like 42. I think if my numbers correct 42,000 pounds on one acre, it's pretty high yield.

Diego: [00:28:12] of that one acre. Can you talk a little bit about the design of that? So you obviously have beds. What's the width configuration you're using. What length beds are you run in? And what's the rough makeup of crops in terms of type that are going into that 42,000 pounds.

Yosef Camire: [00:28:30] that's where I guess I wish I had known Jan for a little bit earlier, or like a Ben Hartman, lean techniques because we're not standard. that's something that we're going to be working on a lot. This winter is standardizing our beds. Now everything is a 30 inch bed. and, but we don't have a specific, length there's no, w we want to do everything.

110 feet because that's the width of one of our green or the length of one of our greenhouses or hoop houses. I just say we don't have any greenhouses. We have seven hoop houses, but as far as standards, we're just, we're not there yet, but we will be over the winter. typically most things are 50 foot beds.

We have one section that has a hundred and 110 foot beds. We have another section that a hundred foot bed, We are, most that we have six hoop houses that are 80 foot long. We have one that's 110. It's not standard at all. as far as what we grow, boy, you name it. We grow it. greens, kales and lettuces, it's tomatoes and cucumbers.

It's we also do winter squashes and summer squashes, cabbages carrots. Root vegetable, all different types of regrets. We don't do potatoes. We don't do a lot of melons. We've tried melons. it's just, it doesn't seem like a very sustainable crop to me. yeah. so you name it, we're growing it

Diego: [00:29:49] Of those crops, what are your big sellers? One thing that you talked to me about prior to doing this is you're in a location that has a bad local food movements with the stuff you're growing. That's a lot of poundage. Where's the money coming from in terms of those crops.

Yosef Camire: [00:30:09] So that is such an understatement to say is the bad local food movement here. It is terrible here. So we do a CSA, and we split that between Colorado Springs and Denver. Now this is the cool thing about CSA is that. All you need is a hundred to 150, depending on the size of your farm or how many customers you want. You only need a certain amount of customers to basically, fulfill all the financials of that farm, as opposed to relying on a farmer's market.

Now farmer's market, you'll get, one customer that picks up $20 worth of stuff. One customer picks up $5 worth of stuff, right? So that's really hard. You need a lot more customers. To buy your stuff at a farmer's market CSA, is great for, a location that has a poor local food movement, because it's easy to find a hundred customers, it's not easy to find a thousand customers. So what we do is we have 120 members CSA, in the summertime in the winter time, which by the way, we're in extremely harsh. winter climate here. we have 80 members CSA next year. We'll probably be going to 110. so that's a that's 12 weeks yesterday.

And then we do go to a farmer's market this year. We did two farmer's market next year. We're actually going down to one and we have one restaurant because it's literally, so we have 600 and I think it's 680,000 people in El Paso County. I'm the largest organic grower and all of El Paso County, I think there's or Four farms.

It's pretty pathetic. and, but the local food movement here is terrible. very terrible. there's literally one restaurant that supports a hundred percent local and he's my chef. So we have one restaurant. We have one farmer's market, the market we're making, somewhere around a thousand, $1,200 a week.

at that market and we also do a little bit of direct sales, people, just come and, they place orders or whatever, and they come and pick up. and then next year we're going to be opening up a farm store. We are rural and we'll see how that works, but it's an existing building, so it's not a big infrastructure, expense. And then, and most of it's a CSA.

Diego: [00:32:15] For that CSA, where did you come up with those hundred? I like the idea of you only need to find a hundred, but sometimes. The hard part is finding the hundreds.

Yosef Camire: [00:32:25] Yeah, I think right away it is great. if you're a new farm who wants to shell out $700 and some people spend it over, over a thousand dollars who wants to do that for her, for a small, for a farm, that's just starting out. I get it. So I started out with 12. we put a local harvest ad out. and then we had a couple of friends and then we had a couple of customers that purchased and we stopped at 12 and believe it or not, we had, we could have probably gone to 30, there was enough interest. and I think a lot of it's just marketing.

We started a blog, we started a Facebook page. We marketed, and people there is not a big local food movement here. Like I said, however, There's that with, that means that there's not a lot of farmers. and there's, and the ones that there are, there's not a lot of regenerative farmers. There's not a lot of pure food farmers, even saying, Oh, I'm organic. if you're organic and you use instead of organic chemicals, that's great. Don't call yourself beyond organic or pure. and so that's what people, that's our niche, right? Sure. pure for you cannot get anything more pure than our food.

So people are really excited about that. A small amount of people within the broader range of population here. but we were able to knock the socks off of 12 customers the first year. And we had a farmer's market. People saw our produce, they heard our story and they were all in. And the way that we run our CSA is that our CSA gets the best cleanest, the best food first, right?

You won't find tomatoes on our farmer's market stand boxes and boxes of tomatoes, our farmer's market stand and have the CFA's not get them. You're not going to see the beautiful produce on a farmer's stand and have the CSA has get second. And so after knocking their socks up the first year, they gave reviews.

They put Google reviews. They gave Facebook reviews. They gave me testimonials that I was able to put on my website and I was able to share it. People. They told other people. Then over the winter we grew and we were able to do direct door to door deliveries and build our mailing list. And that was one thing.

the first farmer's market, we put out a mailing list, had people sign up for our mailing list and, No, we had them circle. Are you interested in CSA for two for the next year? And they said, yes. And so we would call those people directly and we said, Hey, would you like to sign up? So the second year, we tripled or quadrupled our, our CSA customers.

We knock their socks off. They gave reviews, and that's how you just build it. You build it organically like that. And somebody tells somebody else. And the majority of our customers have. The majority of our CSA members have never been a part of the CFA before. They didn't even know what CSA meant.

And so it's basically, not pounding the pavement, pounding the social media and educating people and having free classes on our farm and, just getting out there and we were able to do it. And now boy, if we wanted to, again, this is only our, we just finished our third season. We could have a thousand CSA members.

we sold out of our winter CSA without advertising in 12 days. And if 80 members and it was like, we barely told anybody, they flocked to us and I have a waiting list of at least 30 people, but we're all sold out. So unfortunately they're not going to get in.

Diego: [00:35:45] With that CSA, you have that unique, or not so unique feature of having it be a customizable CSA, which offers three options on a weekly basis for people. Can you talk about how that's worked for you both in terms of customer feedback and customer, experience with the CSA and the logistics of managing that as a farmer?

Yosef Camire: [00:36:08] I can't because it's brand new for next year. This year and last year and a year before, we've done generic CSA, right? It was you pay upfront. What we do actually is a little bit different. We bring coolers full of food, right? We bring two coolers of kale, two coolers of Swiss chard, two coolers, a tomatoes, whatever. They get a list and then they go through, they grab out of the cooler. Whatever's on their list and they put it in their own bag and they go home. And the reason why we did that is because it just stays crisper, it stays fresher. It's clean. They get to choose the everything's really beautiful anyway, but they, I don't know. I guess maybe they have a feeling of doing that.

Plus it saves uptime. That's an efficiency. We don't have to pack bags. So next year, we're going to be, we're using Farmigo. I think that's how you say it. Farmigo and we're really excited about it because it's going to give people the opportunity to, like I said, customize their shares. Now every year we do a survey and we say, what is your top three things that you grew this year that we grew this year? And what is your top? The bottom three. if you never had these again, you'd be okay. I'll have on one house, somebody say. turnips radishes and beets are my absolute favorite, please.

Never just give me tons of those. The very next person that survey will say my most hated thing or turnips, radishes, and beets. You can not make everybody happy with that model. And so we're going through this customizable model where they're going to get a certain amount of vegetables, per week. that they can't customize.

So if we have a. Yes. A ton of turnips. Nobody's ordered turnips for the past six weeks. I'm like, guys, I have to move these turnips. You're going to get turnips this week. I'll pick eight extra items on top of that. And by doing this, it's going to do a lot of things for me as a farmer. No more Excel sheet, right?

It's all in the customer's hand. So all I have to do is on Monday morning, all I have to do is log into Farmigo and hit print, and it tells me what I have to harvest. And it tells me what I have to pack and it's going to make my life so much simpler where I've been for three years, doing Excel sheets and writing down lists and trying to figure out what everybody's going to get in there.

Three size shares, the large, medium, and small, and it's a huge stress. And then I try to mix it up. So everybody's happy. But not everybody's going to be happy. So this is just gonna relieve tons of stress off of me. And I can focus on farming. And just hit the print button and go out and harvest.

Diego: [00:38:46] Does it allow you to put in a starting inventory? So, you say I have 200 bunches of radishes, so somebody can go in and request, 50 and the next person requests 50. And suddenly now you don't have that in the field?

Yosef Camire: [00:38:59] Yes. as far as I know, I did a lot of research before choosing Farmigo, on the other sites out there. as far as I know, it's the only one that does it. So it's in the backend, right? So basically what I'll do is I'll go in I'll I will create the boxes pretty easily, okay. You're getting, these five items, then I will have in the, it'll say like next to it, how many we have available, right. So they can adjust their shares accordingly, but once.

We run out of those 200 bunches of radishes. They can no longer, add them to their CSA share. So it's customizable, but customizable to a point, right? if we run out, but the computer takes care of that for me. I, I go out once a week and the way I'm going to do this, I'm going to actually do it 10 days in advance.

So that I have a really good idea of what's going to be out there. So I'm going to walk my fields and we'll say, okay, you know what? This better of radishes. I could probably get 200 bunches out of this bed. So I'm going to write down 200 bunch of routers. And then I'm going to go into the computer, takes me 10 minutes and I'm going to build the boxes.

and then that's, and then I send it up to the customer. They say, okay guys, you're your shares for 10 days and now are available. Please go in and customize them if you want them, if you want that and they have the option to customize it, they have the option to just say, you know what? I don't want to customize it.

Just, just give me whatever, just surprise me. And then they have the option of saying, you know what? I don't want to share this week. I'm going to be going on vacation. And so therefore just hold my share and the computer will do that for me. I don't have to adjust anything. And, and they saved their credit.

And this is a huge reason why I'm doing this too, is because. I didn't have a way of saving or credit in the past three years. So if they went on vacation, they, we donated their share, but they lost it. So it went to a good cause or it went to a friend of theirs, but they lost it. They didn't get that back.

And I think that's a real turnoff for CSA customers. I'm going on vacation in the summer. What do I do? I can now tell them, Hey, don't worry about it. You're not going to lose your CSA. Share. just put it on hold and you know what, when you get back, if you want to buy a case of tomatoes, go for it. You can just add on for the rest of the season.

Diego: [00:41:09] For a new CSA farmer. this is your third year. How have you found balancing out variety in terms of, growing at all and giving the customers a ton of variety with growing a leaner selection, which makes it easier for you as a farmer?

Yosef Camire: [00:41:31] I advertise it. I say, Hey look guys, quality over quantity. We don't grow potatoes. let's say those take tractors to be profitable. They tear up the soil. They're, they ruin the microbes and stuff like that. when you harvest them, there are a lot of work and then they're cheap. So I think a lot of land.

So I tell them, I say upfront, Hey guys, look, you're not going to get melon, watermelon. You're not going to get potatoes. What are you going to get? And you're going to get the purest food that you're going to be able to find in Colorado. You're going to find regenerative food. That's, our whole farm is, carbon negative.

We're a hundred percent solar powered. that's, we're water negative. We don't use any chemicals, all that stuff. And then they go, you know what? It's okay. I don't need a watermelon if I want a water and I'll go to the store and I'll buy a watermelon. I want. some potatoes. I go to the store and buy five pounds of potatoes.

That's okay. I know what your selection is. I'm happy with that. And I advertise it. I put it on my website. I share it. I'm very clear in my communication that, Hey, you're not going to get X, Y, and Z. This is what you're going to get. And you're going to get pure, clean, healthy produce. If you don't want that, then go to the CSA down the street.

That's going to give you dirty. loads of, wheelbarrows of potatoes. and, the way it's worked for me is they're really happy about that. And that's what the CSA customers, they come back and they say your stuff taste so good. It's so cool in a clean, I get that all the time.

So many customers say to me, Oh, I was a member of this CSA for so many years. your vegetables are actually clean. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. And that's a huge selling point too. So they're like, you know what, forget, I don't care about not having potatoes or watermelon. I get all this clean, beautiful, healthy produce. And they're happy with that.

Diego: [00:43:19] It might sound obvious, but is there anything you�re doing special, you think to ensure that everything is clean? If you're getting that reaction and other farms aren't cleaning it as well?

Yosef Camire: [00:43:31] Yeah, I, I wasn't a farmer, like I didn't have bad habits now. I'm not trying to knock any other farmers. That's not my point, but I didn't intern on another farm. Most CSA�s don't wash their produce. Okay. And I've actually heard the excuse. Oh, it lasts longer. If it's not clean, I call BS and. I didn't have those bad habits. So if I had an intern on another farm that doesn't CSA that way, I would have done it that way, but I thought that's the way how, what you do.

I thought you just cleaned vegetables. so it is pretty obvious. I just, I cleaned them and I count that as part of my, how many hours I worked during the week. And I just say, you know what, I'm not going to grow more food or harvest more food because I won't have the time and the efficiencies to clean it. So I don't really know how to answer that question.

Diego: [00:44:19] Fair enough. It's just one of those things I found it interesting that you're saying that the customers are noticing that. So if they're noticing it, then, it's important to focus on.

Yosef Camire: [00:44:29] It really is. I think for anybody that's listening, if you've been a part of a CSA that gives dirty produce. And that's a lot from what I'm learning. And from what I know, the majority of CSA is out there. If you have dirty photos, Oh, wow, look how fresh it is, carrots right from the dirt. And I've had customers say they stay up all night that night when they get their CSA, washing their vegetables and clean and it just drives them crazy.

I have these return customers and people that are just like, you know what? I don't care that I won't get potatoes. I am your stuff is so beautiful. And it just gives this impression to honestly, it gives the impression that it's just cared for that. I actually care about my, my job that I care about them and that I want to retain them.

And that they're important. Because what happens when you pick up a CSA, that's all dirty. And then the next day you go to the farmer's market, you just happened to be in town. You go to the farmer's market and you see your farmer there and you see all the clean carrots and all the clean, whatever, but you just picked up a CSA and it was all dirty.

they're gonna be like, why am I doing this? Why don't I just buy it from the farmer's market? It's silly. I, it doesn't make sense. And it makes them feel like they're not important if it's. That's what I've gathered from my CSA customers. I've never been a part of a CSA before myself. but I know that we got a lot of compliments, probably that's probably our number one compliment is how clean and beautiful and fresh and tasty are our is.

No. And that there's that cleanliness that people are like, wow, your stuff is so clean. There's actually a comment, a testimonial on my website. And she says on there, she says, I was blown away or something like that about how clean your produce was, which alleviated all my fears of being part of a CSA. Cause that was one of her biggest fears. A lot of people have that fear that they're going to get all this dirty vegetables, but we don't do that.

Diego: [00:46:28] For an area that isn't a local food area. And I guess you're selling outside of that by going into Colorado Springs in Denver, what things have you found tend to alleviate the worries of new CSA customers or attract new CSA customers? So you just touched on the one, it's going to be clean produce. What else do you find attracts people to a CSA when a lot of people are like either, I don't know what that is, or I don't want to do it.

Yosef Camire: [00:47:03] I think sharing with them the importance. obviously there's money savings, right? I give them 10% off at the market.

They get 10% extra. during the season, they get to try new things. I think them understanding that you need to put your money where your mouth is. there are a lot of people that are really passionate about local food and until it comes to paying for it. And that is really tough when you have to get out and get, go to the farmer's market, just for vegetables and go through the farmer's market and get out of your car and pay for parking and all this stuff, it becomes a hassle.

And so a lot of people just abandon the local food Marines. They go to their local grocery and they go to the locally grown section, By sharing with them and educating them that this is so important without you. We don't exist. here are the added benefits. Yeah. You get money and you get, pure food, you get to try new things.

but without you, we don't exist and your support is so super important to us. thank you very much. I think that's really a big aspect of it. The other aspect is I always advertise and I always share with people that it's about more than just the food, right? You go to the grocery store and you can get local, organic.

You can go to the farmer's market and you get local organic food. Being a part of a CSA is about community it's community supported, right? So it builds community. You come to the drop and a lot of my CSA customers have met other CSA customers and they become friends. They become intertwined as part of the CSA.

the local food. Movement. They, they get to know each other, they get each other's phone numbers. They come to volunteer days. They come to the 4th of July bonfire that we have, they come to the farm, they come hang out and they talk and they get to know their farmer. the CSA is different than the farmer's market, Because yes, we get to know our farmers are our customers there, but the wine is moving so fast that I don't have time to sit there and talk to every company. The CSA is different because I'm there. And I get to talk with them and get to know them, and I know their families and I know what they do for a living.

And, it becomes communal and I think that's another big aspect. So really sharing with people, educating people about more than the food that you're making a difference, you're supporting local community, yada. Those are some of the keys

Diego: [00:49:30] In terms of the farmer's market and cultivating customers, one thing that you mentioned to me that I thought was really interesting. I don't know if I've interviewed anybody with this, but you said that you're a pay what you can farm. You have suggested prices, but you advertise that people can pay what they can afford. Can you elaborate on this and explain how it works and where you implement?

Yosef Camire: [00:49:57] Absolutely. So not only do we advertise that, but we. At our farmer's market, all of our signs say, pay what you can. We have a big banner that says big pay what you can. All of our individual labels on all of our, like our carrots, our tomatoes, whatever they all say, Hey, what you can afford. that's really how it works.

we're not subsidized and we get people to ask us, or you didn't have to do that. We're like, no, we're not just doing this out of the goodness of our heart. It's our passion. Here's the thing. Local organic pure food is expensive. That's the bottom line. Regenerativity grown, solar powered water, negative carbon, negative, whatever you want to call it, all this stuff.

It's expensive. We're doing everything with our hands, no trackers, et cetera. And it's high quality. So how do we get that into the people that actually need it? And so the, into the miles of people that need it, and we do that by doing pay what you can, we don't ever want. People to say, you know what?

I'm not going to buy from you because I can't afford it. Forget that it will work out in the end. We have customers that come and they say this, wow, I love what you're doing. This is amazing. Your pay. What you can really hear, keep the change. Here's an extra $10. Here's an extra $5. So I love what you're doing.

I'm just going to support you every single time I come to the farmer's market.

Diego: [00:51:18] When people hear that model, I think this is what they assume happens. Everybody walks up to the booth. They pick a bunch of stuff and, but down a very small percentage of retail value, how do you actually see it play out in reality over the course of a volume?

Yosef Camire: [00:51:34] It happens. It happens. I do. I definitely do. I get those individuals that will grab a bag of stuff and they will, Give me a dollar, and they'll say, Oh, will you take a dollar for this? And I'm like, you know what, absolutely. It's not a problem. You know what this does for me, Diego, this allows me.

It just keeps me stress-free right. I don't know honestly how much money I bring to the farmer's market worth of produce. I just don't, I don't calculate it. I know what sells I document what sells and I know how many bunch of the parents I need to bring. But I don't know the value. Could I do it? Yeah, sure.

I could on the suggested prices and I'm not worried about it. If I don't make, I have a very low budget and I go, as long as we make over this, I'm happy. And you do get a couple customers that go, Hey, can we take a dollar for this? Absolutely not a problem, but the very next customer will say, you know what?

Here? Just keep the change. I'm like, no, that's too much. That's too much. Don't give me that much. I was like, no. I love what you do. Just keep the change. And I'm like, really? They're like, yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. And they come back week after week at the end of it. I really think I've tried to do the math and I really think we actually come out on top.

I think we actually sell more. I think we make more money financially. at the end of the day than we do, if we had.

Diego: [00:52:59] Cause it probably works out. on a bell curve, if you think about it, you're going to get the, most of the people are right around suggested price or add, suggested price. You get a few people that pay less and then you get the people that pay more. And the people that more average out the people that pay less.

Yosef Camire: [00:53:15] Right, right. And that's not why we're doing it. I know that sounds like a scheme. Oh, we're making more money off of people. No, that's not why we do it. We really honestly. The first year I was still working as an engineer and we didn't need the money necessarily. It was important, but it wasn't like we were starting. And I just said to my wife, honey, can we just, I just want to give it away. So idealistic and. And she's sure let's do it. So we just, we did it. And I think it was like the highest grossing market of our season at that point. And, of course that's not why we did it.

But it ended up working out and ever since then, we've had so many customers that say, I love what you're doing and they're with us because of that. So I have customers that are with us because of regenerative agriculture. And we care about the land and the environment. I have customers that are with us because we're pure the purest food you're going to find.

We have customers because that are with us because we're a family farm. And our kids actually work in the phone. I have customers that are with us because we're pay what you can. So it's like a whole, we have a lot of, I don't know, market, not market channels, but reasons for customers to stay with us again.

That's not why we're doing it, we're doing it because we're very idealistic sometimes to a fault. when you do the right thing, it always comes back. I think the university pays you back and that's where we're at and it's working out well and we're happy with it. And we know that we're doing something good for those people that can't afford.

And we donate CSA shares every year. We donate at least three CSA shares. Every year we donate food to people that we have. we have a whole bunch of families that we have one family that has a sick father and a whole bunch of children. We have one family that has a sick, really sick daughter that has all types of surgeries and whatever.

And we have another family that has a sick mother and father that has no job. And so like we donate the people and we do the right thing. And at the end of the day, Everybody's good. Even if I were making less money than, than I could, who cares? I'm making a living. My family's happy. my family's healthy. We're all eating. And the community's benefiting. We're building community. There's nothing better.

Diego: [00:55:43] So go back to the pay. What you can. this is, it's an interesting model hearing you talking about it, but this isn't also, this is not a small, tiny farmer's market. You're doing like a thousand dollars a weekend, right with this model.

Yosef Camire: [00:55:58] It's not a weekend. It's actually a Wednesday

Diego: [00:56:00] or a day hours a day.

Yosef Camire: [00:56:02] And it's, it's not even a day. It's three hours pretty quick. but yeah, I think our highest market this year was 1300. And our lowest market this year was probably 650 or something like that. It was a cold rainy day. So yeah, I mean it's and that's from that's when three to six 30.

Diego: [00:56:21] So here in all this, one acre, very bad area, poor growing conditions to start poor local food market. You started this on the side as an engineer, and even in the video on your website, That video call the labor of love. You said something in that video, like you can't make a lot of money farming. Now, hearing all this and coming full circle with it all. What do you think about that now?

Yosef Camire: [00:56:52] I, I think I was wrong, look, we're not getting rich. Okay. but we're making a decent living and we're making a difference doing it. And there's nothing. What else can I ask for? I'm doing not only that I'm doing something. I love I'm home. I'm here with my children. I'm here with my family. I'm working in the soil. I am working with. I'm making the environment a better place. I am educating people. I don't know, man. It doesn't matter. I'm making a good living.

Diego: [00:57:26] One thing this movement gets chastised for is you can't support a family doing this, or you can't make a significant living doing this. you're grossing like $160,000 on an acre. Do you feel like your stress week to week or month to month about the bills? While running this farmer. Do you feel like at this point, this farm provides you with just what you said, a comfortable living?

Yosef Camire: [00:58:00] we've been pouring money into the farm, so things that 160, a lot of it goes back into the farm, but next year it won't, we're, we are basically in our infrastructure is up. We are solid. we're going to, we're going to be going and taking an RV trip. down to the grand Canyon and all over the place for a few weeks in January.

so we're vacation. we have employees, and that's another thing I'm employing people, So we're actually contributing in that way too. There's so many, it's so beautiful. what we're doing and yes, we're making a living and, I'm not stressed out about. The bills we're making.

And that a lot of that though, Diego is because of who I am. I'm very, w everything's low-balled right. It's, everything's a worst case scenario then. Okay. Next year, worst case scenario, there's so much we're gonna make. and so we have a very low budget and everything above that is a cake, And, we are. Let me give you an example, our farmer's market budget this year, $500 a market. Okay. I obviously crushed that. but we live off of that $500. And so it's not living off the 500. We have the CSA and all that stuff too. But my point is that our budget's low. We live very simply. And, we still take our kids to the trampoline park and we still go to, vacations and all that stuff.

And we still have extra money to spend our kids have clothes and we have, cars and everything. We have a living and there's no stresses there. And we're helping people along the way and we're doing the right thing. And there's really, obviously you can tell I'm passionate about this, but there's nothing better. Yes, you can make a living and you can do it. And we need more farmers here in El Paso County. So anybody's listening. Give me a call. I'll help you start.

Diego: [00:59:48] Thinking of that that family, making a living, doing it, your one acre, is that enough? Or are you gonna look to try and grow that over time? Or is that you found your sweet spot?

Yosef Camire: [00:59:59] We thought our, I think we thought our sweet spot. the problem is that we're all, we're always sold that sold out. Right now don't get me wrong. We've a very terrible local food movement. Okay. And I say that because we're the largest organic grower in El Paso County and the farmer's market, everyone around here says, I go to the farmer's market.

There's no farmers, it's just, it's really terrible right now. but with that said, because we're the only ones we're always sold out. So there is always that temptation to go, Hey, let's get bigger so that we can meet that demand. I don't know if I want to. we're happy where we have a very relaxed lifestyle.

we love to work on the farm and, Joel, South and, and one of his books, I don't remember which one, but he says, live where you'd like to vacation. What else would I want to do besides farm? I live, I love here. I love it here. and getting bigger and getting. I think getting bigger and bigger, you need trackers. You need maybe not jam 40 is doing it on what tape? 10 acres. but I don't want 20, a 20 member crew. Not now. we're happy with where we're at and let's take it one day, one, one week, one season at a time.

Diego: [01:01:11] Yeah, I'm with you. in hearing you're right, you're clearly passionate about it. I think you're somebody who is followed the year ideology and made it work with that ideology. And it's a successful farm in many senses of the word, happy farmer, happy family, and financially. Works. And it supports the community, which is nice in and of itself. And I'll want to thank you for coming on and sharing all this today for people that want to check out your farm, or if they're in that region and they want to get on the wait list for the CSA, where's the best place to go?

Yosef Camire: [01:01:45] Our website has a lot of information on there. It's www dot Ahava it's H a V H. Farm.com. So A H A V A H F A R m.com. Most of the information is on there. Also our Facebook page. You can just look us up a Hava farm, and, we post on there daily. We also started an Instagram this year, but I don't know technology only so much you can do. So I'm not huge on Instagram, but we're trying to post more and more on there. but I think Facebook and the, the website is the best places to go.

Diego: [01:02:26] There you have it. Yosef of Ahavah farm. I love what Yosef is doing on his farm, trying these different things different at least then what most people were doing in this space and pay what you can model the back deed model. I find it very interesting that these things are work for him on a commercial scale.

Which then brings me to the next question. Is there anybody else doing this? So if you're listening to this and you're doing a wood chip based gardening method on a commercial scale for a market garden, similar to what Yosef is doing, where you're generating profit and create a livelihood, send me an email.

I'd love to hear more about it. Also, if you're doing anything with no, till I'd love to talk to more people doing no till on their farm. So if you're doing no till successfully, if you think you have it dialed in and it's working really well for you send me an email as well. Diego at permaculture voices.

Dot com I really want to thank Yosef for coming on today and sharing everything that he's doing. If you want to follow along with what he's doing in Colorado, be sure to check out a link to his farm in the description for this episode. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy all these episodes of farm, small farm smart.

Be sure to leave a review on iTunes, just go to iTunes, find the podcast, click on, leave a review. Pretty simple, pretty easy to do. If you could take a few minutes to do that, I'd really appreciate it. It does help out, regardless of whether you do that or not. Thanks for listening today. Next week, I'll be back with another small scale farmer making a go of it between now and then keep hustling and crushing it and stay tuned for another episode.

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