Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Becky Tamez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Becky, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

When my husband, Pete, and I had our first daughter we started researching what healthy living was and how we could instill that in our children. We were appalled at how our food system was run and decided that we wanted to grow our food so we could control what was in it. We started gardening for ourselves and got quite good at it. We were no longer buying any vegetables at the store. One day Pete sent me a video of a guy who was farming people’s backyards in a city in Canada and I was like “Why aren’t we doing that?” The guy was offering courses at the time on how he was doing this and we hopped right in! We followed his course to the Tee. We started growing microgreens. We transformed one of our bedrooms into a microgreens room with a water hose and everything. We then transformed the layout of our garden into one that would allow more production. Once we were set up at our home site, we then went looking for other people’s yards to farm. The first person we came to actually had 2 acres we could farm. We stopped looking for other people’s yards because we had all we needed.

I had an idea to build a farm and then we ran with it. We didn’t hem and haw over if it would work, logistics, or anything else. There was no “maybe we should do this or maybe we should do that.” We just did it. We researched enough information for us to just begin and we have continued to build it over time, honing our skills, and making it even better.

Becky, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Becky. My husband, Farmer Pete, and I started Isle Acre Farms in 2015. We started gardening for ourselves a few years before then but outside of that, we had no experience whatsoever in growing food. We did not come from agricultural families and we surely didn’t put healthy living at the forefront of our lifestyle. As we started having children, we realized that something needed to change in the food system because it was not healthy or sustainable. We knew there were others like us out there that wanted something cleaner, healthier, and no chemicals. And that’s exactly what we did. We started growing chemical-free vegetables for the community and it’s been wonderful. Right now we run a CSA program which stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s essentially like a membership to the farm. It’s a great way for people to support local, build community, get clean, organically grown vegetables, and have someone be their own personal farmer. We really believe that being a part of a CSA allows those to become connected with the land and where their food comes from; even if they can’t do it themselves. We are a farm on honesty, transparency, and integrity. Our members are our partners.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience is a topic we have been talking a lot about recently. Over the years, we have witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change. When we started the farm, we were able to farm year-round. In the last couple of years, the winter temperatures have dropped dangerously low. In 2022, we went through a severe drought in the summer in which we were lucky because we had a natural spring to pump water from. However, in the winter, we saw temperatures in the low 10s that killed off everything we had growing…twice! We lost everything twice. It was a pretty challenging year and we were not set up for it at all. So in order to make our agricultural farm more resilient, we’ve put into place our CSA program which will only run during the nice growing season. We will no longer grow for production (or at least “count on it”) in the winter until we can implement greenhouses. But not only does the farm have to be resilient against climate change, but we have to be resilient as business owners. It was devastating to lose everything and we had to really sit and think hard about how we can change that, do we continue farming, etc. We’ve done a lot of soul-searching and mindset work to be more adaptive and resilient. What it ultimately came down to was that we still feel led to continue with our mission to provide our community with healthy food and the farm lifestyle and have to be mentally fit to make that happen.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Honesty and transparency. There are a lot of misconceptions that can happen in the agriculture space. For example, consumers assume that just because it’s at a farmers market and not the grocery store, that automatically it’s organically grown. That is not the case and we’ve seen other farmers take advantage of that. They may not flat-out lie that it is organically grown, but if someone assumes it, they don’t correct them and especially so if the consumer hasn’t asked. It can be misleading for them. We point out our honesty to our customers. We have nothing to hide or lie about so we tell them that. We tell them that vegetables don’t all grow the same shape or they may come with “friends.” This is what organically grown means. I feel that when you have an honest company and you’re forthcoming with your practices, people like that. They want to know what it is you’re doing and what they’re buying into. It makes them feel more connected to you and when people like you, they buy from you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.isleacrefarms.com
• Instagram: @isleacrefarms
• Facebook: @isleacrefarms