Santa Barbara Community Rallies Around Farmer Mike Iniguez of Ebby’s Organic Farm

Santa Barbara Saturday mornings can feel like a visual dopamine rush of vitality. Men, women, and children — young and old — walk the corridor of Carrillo Street in search of produce arranged beneath rows of white tents. Color is everywhere. Children sample orange slices and strawberries. The air smells faintly of herbs and damp cardboard boxes.

It is a place that connects food from the local land and soil to our kitchens. It is also a place where Santa Barbarans connect with each other. 

Now, the community is being called upon to support a farmer who has spent decades helping sustain that connection.

Mike Iniguez, a Santa Barbara grower who has farmed locally for more than four decades, is facing stage-four mesothelioma and undergoing intensive treatment that has forced him away from his fields during one of the most critical planting seasons of the year.

A community fundraising campaign has already drawn more than $32,000 from roughly 430 donations, as fellow farmers, customers, and neighbors work to help keep his operation running while he undergoes radiation treatment in Los Angeles.

“For me, the Farmers’ Market is the most trusted food producer locally,” said Lorena Rodriguez, Iniguez’s family member. “He always had ethical standards — telling the truth to customers, growing clean food without pesticides, taking care of the environment. It’s crucial for humans to have that balance.”

Iniguez, 72, began farming in Santa Barbara after immigrating from Mexico around 1980. He first worked for other growers before launching his own operation with his brothers, eventually establishing Ebby’s Organic Farm, named for his eldest daughter. He recalls delivering broccoli to the Isla Vista Food Co-Op as one of his first regular accounts.

“All summer, tomatoes are my main item,” Iniguez said in a recent interview. “A few years ago, I also started selling lettuce.”

For decades, his produce has appeared at regional farmers’ markets and local grocers. He has also served for years on the Santa Barbara Certified Farmers’ Market board, helping guide decisions affecting growers across the county.

Longtime farmer Tom Shepherd remembers meeting Iniguez at Winchester Canyon during the early years of Santa Barbara’s organic agriculture movement.

“I know Mike really well, and I love him,” Shepherd said. “He’s been a really important member of the market … one of the only Hispanic voices on the board and a real gentleman.”

Shepherd, who battled aggressive bladder cancer beginning in 2022, said community support can play a vital role during treatment.

“When I talk to people that are going through cancer, my words of advice is, feel the love — and love heals,” he said. “Don’t try to keep it a secret. Let your community help you.”

That help is now arriving from across the region. Donations to the fundraiser have included contributions from fellow growers such as BD Dautch of Earthtrine Farm, showing the tight-knit nature of the Central Coast’s farm network.

Iniguez is currently undergoing weeks of radiation therapy at UCLA following major thoracic surgery in January. Rodriguez said the treatment requires frequent travel and extended stays in Los Angeles, creating financial pressure at a time when farm work has slowed significantly.

“He stopped working since September,” she said. “He got so weak, he lost a lot of weight. Now we are behind in planting — March is always the start for summer crops.”

In many ways, Iniguez had been operating as a one-man band.

“I try to do everything by myself,” he said. “I do the tractors, the planting, and the selling at the market.” Family members and fellow farmers have stepped in to assist with tractor work, transplanting, and harvesting, but the operation remains strained.

“We are trying,” Rodriguez said. “We are doing our best.”

Since its founding, Mike’s Organic Farm has emphasized connection to the land, affordability, and direct relationships with customers — a philosophy that mirrors the farmers market itself, where transactions quickly become conversation.

For years, Iniguez has been a steady presence there, selling tomatoes and lettuce with a smile that regular shoppers have come to recognize. In recent weeks, those same aisles have carried shared fundraising links and donations from neighboring growers, rallying around what farmer Tom Shepherd describes as a “small but mighty man.”

On the fundraiser page created to support his treatment, organizers wrote simply: “It’s time for us to step up and give back!”