Microgreen Business Sprouts Up in San José

San José Microfarms hopes to change the way people eat and grow their food

In times of increasing commercialization, the Santa Clara Farmers Market enables both patrons and vendors to return to their roots of sustainable community agriculture.

“If one person grew all the potatoes and the other person grew all the lettuce, we should be able to survive as a community,” said Darshini Rodriguez, cofounder of San José Microfarms.

The local business, run by Darshini Rodriguez and her husband, Marc Rodriguez, specializes in growing microgreens. Customers can get a taste of the trendy superfood from a couple that emphasizes freshness and nutritional value.

Microgreens are harvested a week after the plant has sprouted. The greens are cut off at the soil level to reduce bacteria before the true leaf—the part of the plant typically commercially sold—emerges.

“Microgreens contain all the nutrients from the seed,” Darshini Rodriguez said. “This form is easier to consume, easier to digest and easier to garnish anything and everything you’re eating.”

The business began when the COVID-19 pandemic first began. 

“Before the pandemic, I was an event manager,” Darshini Rodriguez said. “During the pandemic, when I helped out at a food bank, 90% of the union workers who I had worked with were in line at the food pantry.”

The couple’s astonishment at the prevalence of food insecurity inspired them to learn to grow their own food. With limited knowledge or experience with the science of farming, the first step was learning what food they could realistically grow.

“We watched YouTube videos and grew little packets of seeds on our countertops,” Marc Rodriguez said. “Microgreens don’t take a lot of infrastructure–just a couple of metal racks and some lights you can buy on Amazon. It's a low starting cost.”

Because microgreens are so small, they are an easy crop for just about anyone to grow. The couple wants to show that having a green thumb isn’t limited to people with acres of land; farms can thrive even in balcony planters or take-out containers.

“We call ourselves a micro-farm,” Darshini Rodriguez said. “We focus on vertical growth and things you can do in an urban setting.”

Microfarms allow for both a personal connection with plants grown and a strengthened relationship between buyer and seller. Maintaining this communal nature is part of the reason they don’t want their business to go commercial.

“We want to grow enough for ourselves and to sell a bit at the farmers market,” Marc Rodriguez said. “We’re definitely very community-based, and we want to get everybody into the idea of growing their own food.”

They also want to ensure that the environmental impact of their business remains as small as possible. 

“We are local, so there’s not a lot of carbon output like from big industrial farms,” Marc Rodriguez said. “We also harvest the day before or the day of delivery, which reduces the time it takes food on our table to get to us.”

Ultimately, the story behind San Jose Microfarms is one of community and education.

“We try to teach people how to grow their own microgreens,” Darshini Rodriguez said. “We know that in San Francisco or Berkeley, we could easily sell these for double the price, but we want to keep them in a community that we’ve been in for decades.”