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On her quarter-acre farm behind her home in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, Rachel Opio has found a way back to her mother through community agriculture.

Rachel is a recipient of AgWest’s 2024 New Producer Grant, a one-time $15,000 grant that helps beginning farmers get started. Nestled in her backyard, Little Lighthouse Farm produces seasonal fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and chicken eggs for sale at a local farmers market and direct-to-consumer.

She also runs a school garden club and consults for people just getting started in farming.

She once enjoyed gardening with her mother, whom she cared for at her current home until her passing several years ago from cancer. For months, Rachel was overcome with grief and avoided the garden, letting it go wild rather than face the painful reminder of what she’d lost.

Then one day, as a way of honoring her mother, she began to clean up and tend the land. She found the process to be therapeutic.

“I thought, I’ve always wanted to grow food for my family,” she said. “Then I thought, I’ll grow food for my neighbors. Then it was like, I’ve always wanted to start a farm. I’m going to do it.”

Farm-to-folks connection

Rachel started her farm in 2022. Despite being a small business, she became an approved retailer accepting federal SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Women, Infants and Children) and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program benefits.

In her economically diverse community, the distinction is an important one in helping her reach more people with wholesome, nutritious food.

“Here in Phoenix, people have access to food, but not always real food,” she said. “I tell myself that all the time: If you don't do it, how's somebody going to get that real food?”

At her farm in early October, Rachel was growing greens like purslane, Swiss chard and spinach; sweet potatoes and sweet potato greens; okra, chiles, hibiscus, eggplant and “any herb you can think of, and probably some you've not.”

Chickens at Little Lighthouse Farm

She also relies on egg production from her seven chickens, whom she refers to as “employees” and christens with memorable names like “Hennifer Lopez” and “Vera Wing.” To help them produce at their highest level, she pastures them around the small farm throughout the day, moving them hourly at times.

A self-described “science nerd” with a background in data and analytics, Rachel offers soil testing services and says that’s the secret to growing in a small area.

“You can grow as much food as you want in a small space, as long as you're paying close attention to your soil,” she said.

New Producer Grant aids business

One of the factors currently limiting the growth of her business is cold food storage. To increase the amount of produce she can harvest and store, Rachel plans to buy a refrigeration system with the $15,000 in grant funding from AgWest.

“That means I can harvest more often,” she said. “I can be doing succession planting, and get food out more often, to more people.”

Once she obtains the walk-in refrigerator, she plans to start a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription service, regularly delivering fresh produce to buyers in her local community.

Rachel says despite her crippling ADHD, the straightforward layout of the grant application made the process easy to complete.

“I can't even explain how much I appreciated having templates created for me,” she said. “Having all those things clear made the biggest difference.”

Giving back

Another way Rachel honors her mother, a lifelong childhood educator, is by spearheading the garden club at her daughter’s elementary school. In early October, Rachel had just returned from planting serrano chilies, carrots, broccoli and blueberries with the students at the Title 1 school, where there is an overwhelming interest in gardening.

Rachel Opio picking peppers

“One of the things I promised the kids is to have our own little farmer’s market,” she said. “But what would be really cool is if we could just give away everything to the community, because there’s so much opportunity to help out over there.”

One of her favorite things to show kids who visit her farm is her luffa plant, which was putting out tendrils 20 to 30 feet long. Belonging to the same family as squash, luffa can be eaten as a vegetable, or can be dried and used as a sponge.

Rachel is using her daughter’s garden club as a beta version to give the entire school district a model to replicate. In addition to the school club, she helps guide residents at an affordable housing complex in planting their community garden beds.

Finding life in the garden

For Rachel, farming will always hold special meaning, with its connection to her beloved mother and its ability to nourish and bring people together.

Before her mother passed, Rachel moved a dwarf fig tree her mother had potted to a more remote location on the farm, intending to plant it in the ground. But as her mother’s condition worsened, she abandoned the tree in its pot. Over time, the tree pushed out roots, broke through its ceramic confines and grabbed ahold of the earth beneath it.

And then, the forgotten tree did something beautiful: It produced figs.

“My mom’s immediate response was, ‘It’s not supposed to have figs,’” Rachel laughed, wiping away tears.

Rachel is keeping her mother’s legacy alive in the farm’s name, honoring the dedicated educator who taught young students for more than 50 years.

“If you asked her why she kept going back, she would say, ‘Every kid deserves an opportunity to learn how to read,’” Rachel said.

“That’s why I started Little Lighthouse. Everybody deserves access to real food. My mom herself was a lighthouse. She was a guiding light.”

For detailed information on the New Producer Grant, including eligibility and application process, please visit the AgWest New Producer Grant page.

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