Raedel Urban Farms is POC-owned small homestead farm in the South Bay region of San Diego near Imperial Beach. Owned and operated by Daniel Barron Corrales, an artist and urban farmer who describes his plot as a, “project grounded in promoting community and nutrition”. He grows spinach, carrots, turnips, microgreens, beets, radish, lettuce, and a variety of other seasonal fruits and herbs.
In early March, members of the Urban Food Equity team, Elle Mari and Rodrigo Alvarez, visited Raedel Urban Farms to highlight Daniel’s unique story of pandemic impacted artist turned farmer, and to better understand the vision behind his efforts. Almost instantly, we recognized the crafty resourcefulness that has helped the farm flourish. Daniel has found ways to repurpose everything from restaurant equipment found for free online to old bathtubs that he uses to wash produce.
Going forward R.U.F. looks to expand by securing partnerships with local restaurants, continuing to provide low-cost or free produce to underserved neighborhoods nearby, and becoming authorized to accept SNAP EBT to reach more food insecure customers. He’s also looking for more land nearby to grow on! We’ll do our best to support Daniel’s vision of community by connecting him with our network of farmer friends in the San Diego Urban Growers’ Collaborative and helping him identify funding sources for farm projects such as building out his bike cart as a mobile produce operation (see photo).
Daniel offers contactless pickup for produce on orders placed via Direct Message on Instagram, in addition to COVID-19 safe tours of his farm where customers can watch him harvest produce and take a photo to be featured on his Instagram.
You can support R.U.F. by following them on Instagram @raedel_urban_farms or donating to them on Venmo @raedel-urban-farms to help get that bike produce cart rolling!
Don’t forget to check out R.U.F. on our Good Food Finder too!