Foodshed Cooperative Is Growing San Diego’s Small-Farm Economy

After half their farm’s crops were wiped out by a devastating heat wave in 2018, Ellee Igoe and Hernan Cavazos, co-founders of Solidarity Farm, changed their practices with the explicit goal of adding more carbon to the soil, or “carbon farming.”

The farm grows seasonal fruits and vegetables on 10 acres in the semi-arid, unincorporated area of Pauma Valley in central San Diego County, on land it rents from the Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians; they partnered with the Luiseño to create a “carbon sink demonstration farm.” Here, they educated other local farmers on how to farm with more regenerative practices such as cutting down on tillage, growing cover crops, and integrating compost.

Like most of the small local farms in the area—more than 3,000 farms in San Diego County grow food on fewer than 10…