BY JEFF DAVIDSON
Farming has appealed to Joseph Dominguez since he was a kid. Born and raised in Yuma, Dominguez doesn’t remember a time that he wasn’t growing plants. After high school, he earned an associate degree in plant science and eventually followed an instructor to Cal Poly to complete his bachelor’s degree in horticulture.
And now, he’s running Hillside Farms, a boutique operation in Yuma that specializes in organic produce. Inside nine greenhouses set across about an acre, Dominguez grows heirloom tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and colorful carrots — commonly referred to as “rainbow” carrots.
To maximize the efficiency of his small farm, and to find ways to extend his growing season, Dominguez participated in the Green Business Boot Camp. The award-winning program, offered by Local First Arizona, guides locally-owned businesses through seven informative sessions designed to offer sustainability-focused solutions that support the goals of each individual business.
In addition to sessions as a cohort, business owners also receive one-on-one coaching that allows them to distinguish which solutions would make the most sense for them to leverage for improved outcomes for their specific business.
For Dominguez, the Green Business Boot Camp experience introduced him to a pair of federal funding opportunities that could create and foster new community connections, expand his business, and ultimately improve its profitability.
Since Hillside Farms is off-grid, Dominguez relies on generators for electricity to run fans that keep the greenhouse cool. Because the generators run on fuel, they can be both monetarily expensive and also costly to the environment.
In order to potentially mitigate the farm’s climate impact and save money, Dominguez applied for a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant with hopes of installing a 14 kilowatt solar array system. The energy it would produce would allow Hillside Farms to discontinue its use of generators for the greenhouse cooling system.
“We could run more timers and more drip irrigation,” Dominguez said of the potential that the solar array offers. “I could revamp the whole farm.”
Dominguez is still waiting to hear if he received the grant — funded by the Inflation Reduction Act — which would reimburse him for a portion of the costs associated with the solar installation. He’s been told the grant is working its way through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the funding.
As he awaits information on the status of the REAP grant — many of which have been stalled in recent months by the current administration — he has been able to move forward with a second grant he applied for with the help of Local First Arizona.
That grant, known as the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) program, provided Hillside Farms with $98,000 to develop a mobile kitchen.
“It’s kind of like a food truck,” Dominguez said. He plans to use the mobile kitchen to extend his reach into the Yuma farming community and teach others how to process local food, from pickling to sauces. The REAP grant would also help him to provide more produce earlier in the year.
“I could build cold storage,” he said. “You’re picking 200 pounds of zucchini in a day, and you can’t move it. It’s got to go to cold storage and get metered out.” www.hillsidefarmsaz.com
