A Young Operation with Deep Agricultural Roots in Camp Verde
Hailing from a part of the U.S. where success is measured in numbers like acres owned and planted versus yield percentage, two sisters decided to start farming small—their own way—and grow something invaluable: community. Raised in rural Ohio on their family’s cow-calf operation, Laura Davis and Sarah Fox grew up participating in 4-H and FFA, and absorbing the unspoken rules of large-scale agriculture. “Where we’re from, any farm under 1,000 acres is considered a hobby farm. Anything under 100 and no one takes you seriously,” Davis says. It was a mind-set they carried with them right up until they found themselves farming just over two acres in Arizona and heeding the demand for local produce. The sisters knew they could farm differently.
Two Sisters’ Tomatoes began in the spring of 2021 in the foothills of Camp Verde under circumstances familiar to many: a pandemic that shifted life’s footing overnight. “I’d just been laid off from the hospitality industry in Sedona,” Fox says, “and Laura was back from Nepal after her Peace Corps assignment—promoting kitchen gardens and teaching nutrition security—was canceled. We were both in-between things and thought, ‘If not now, when?’”
They had the farming and horticultural knowledge, the agricultural roots, the business acumen. Moreover, they had the passion for creating access to local food, a community service they thought worthwhile. They knew it was possible to be niche—everyone loves fresh tomatoes—and still be successful. Starting small wasn’t easy. Sourcing irrigation supplies in quantities tiny by mainstream industry standards proved expensive. “After Covid, we could buy anything online— but because we needed so little, the shipping costs were prohibitive,” Fox says.
Instead, they relied on neighbors to help improve water infrastructure around the property, and drew on their backgrounds to build the beginnings of a farm from scratch. They scrounged for materials and grew their own tomato transplants from seed, usually a task farmers would outsource to nurseries. “There just aren’t a lot of wholesale nursery options in this area,” Davis says. At one point, she wrote a six-page justification just to secure the insurance they needed to start selling at local markets. Armed with her knowledge of beginning farmer support via a variety of programs at the United States Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the tight margins inherent in all farming enterprises, she succeeded in said insurance.
But the real miracle was witnessing the community show up. That first year, customers flocked to their stands at markets in Prescott, Payson, and Camp Verde. Tomatoes disappeared faster than they could grow them. There is a saying in local food circles: “If we could grow farmers, we would.” Two Sisters Tomatoes is that wish come true. Local communities have an appetite for the ability to source seasonal, locally grown, outstandingly fresh and tasty produce from people they can actually talk to. T hat demand is part of what makes local food special and part of what makes it different from anything in the mainstream food system.
There’s a word in foodways: terroir. It roughly translates to a taste of place, or of the land. It suggests that tomatoes grown in Camp Verde carry notes of Camp Verde, not just of the soil, but of the hands that tend them, the weather that shapes them, and the stories woven around them. Just as terroir shapes the flavor of every tomato, the sisters have shaped Camp Verde, and Camp Verde has shaped them. Sales keep the farm alive, but relationships keep the farmers going.
That’s why the sisters’ origin story resonates: It isn’t only about two women choosing to farm; it’s about a community choosing them back. “People came out of the woodwork that first year,” Fox says. “There was such an appetite for fresh tomatoes. Many of those early customers are now like family. They come over for dinner. We hang out.” The beauty of Two Sisters Tomatoes isn’t just in their produce; it’s in the world they’re building. And the result is delicious!
To follow the sisters’ farming journey or purchase their tomatoes, flowers, and produce, visit facebook.com/twosisterstomatoes
