Local Food Heroes - The Urban Farm

Published in Tideland Magazine - October 2022

Roderick Camarce stands next to a row of waist-high garlic plants and gestures across the street to the line of cars snaking into the Taco Bell drive-thru, “Everyone wants convenience these days,” he says with a wry smile.  

 But quick convenience is not the goal of Camarce’s Ridgetop Urban Farm, the 1/10 acre farm he runs in what was a fenced yard behind his family’s duplex. He first gained an appreciation for growing food while living in the Philippines from 2013-2017, and he still connects with his heritage through some of the vegetables he grows – calamansi, boy choy, saluyot.

 He readily admits that the past five years have been a grind, and he’s watched other urban farms in Bremerton come and go. “It’s easy to burn out.”   

Several government programs have helped. He’s worked with the Kitsap Conservation District and their Farm to Food Pantry program, which provides financial assistance to help farmers grow food for local food banks, and he is awaiting delivery of two new greenhouses funded by the USDA’s High Tunnel Initiative.

 But more than anything – he’s been sustained by his own passion for doing this work. “I found a sense of healing through gardening and a sense of meaningfulness. A lot of people don’t care that I’m here doing this, they don’t understand” he says, eyeing that line of cars across the street, ”but that’s ok! I know that I care.”