In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we sit down with Greg Reese, first-generation farmer and farm manager at Fox Point Farms - a working agrihood community in Encinitas, California. Greg didn't grow up on a farm. He grew up in the suburbs, stumbled into organic food through a farm-to-table restaurant job in his mid-twenties, and spent the next decade piecing together an education from backyard gardens, WWOOFing trips to Costa Rica, rainwater harvesting work, school gardens, indigenous land partnerships, and small urban farms. That winding, mentor-rich path eventually led him to the farm he manages now: a two-and-a-half-acre regenerative operation embedded in a 250-home community, with a restaurant, market, brewery, and apothecary all on site.

Tune in to learn more about:

• The moment Greg realized organic food tasted and felt different, and what that curiosity unlocked
• The difference between gardening and farming, and how scale, markets, and business thinking change everything
• What an agrihood is, why the concept resonates deeply, and how Fox Point Farms came to be
• Why cutting out the supply chain middleman is one of the most powerful things a small farmer can do
• The true cost of food: land, labor, water, machinery, government subsidies, and why "cheap" conventional produce is only cheap on the surface
• Why Americans spend less of their income on food than almost any other developed nation, and what that says about our priorities
• The race to the bottom on food prices, and why Greg refuses to participate
• Greg's step-by-step advice for anyone who wants to get started in farming
• How agritourism (farm dinners, animal encounters, U-picks, school visits) is becoming essential to the small farm business model

Connect + Learn More:

Follow Greg’s Instagram: @farmergreg_official

Check out Fox Point Farms: @foxpointfarms

Website: foxpointfarms.com

Connect with Hannah: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hannahkeitel ⁠⁠⁠