Meet Our Vendors: Alvarez Organic Farms

Hilario Alvarez shows off some of the delicious peppers he grows on his farm, Alvarez Organic Farm.

Alvarez Organic Farms has been family owned and operated in the lower Yakima Valley since Hilario Alvarez started the business in 1981. They are conscious of the impact their 80 acres can have on the environment, and in 2014 installed a state-of-the-art irrigation system to aid their water conservation efforts. The Alvarez family is as community conscious as they are environmentally conscious, donating the majority of their leftover market produce to food banks throughout the Puget Sound area. Alvarez Organic Farms is a true Farmers Market and community staple, though Farmer Hilario’s success did not come without extremely hard work and determination.

Hilario Alvarez hails from the state of Michoacan, Mexico, where he and his seven brothers and sisters helped out on the family’s small farm. In his teens, Hilario moved to the outskirts of Tijuana to work on a feedlot- hard, thankless work that only paid $5 an hour. In search of a better future, Hilario sold his land in Mexico and moved to California. That first lonely stint in the U.S. didn’t last long, though his second go around in Washington state with his new wife Maria stuck. The pair had nine children and with that many mouths to feed, it was time to scale up. With a lot of hard work, Hilario was eventually able to purchase 30 acres of land in the Yakama Valley, where his beautiful family settled. Today, Alvarez Organic Farms grows on just over 80 acres, and Hilario continues to farm and teach his children family techniques.

The Alvarez’s are proud of what their family has built, and Hilario’s sons continue the family’s farming tradition, a no-nonsense, chemical-free ethos. “My dad farms the way my ancestors farmed in Mexico a hundred years ago, before the chemicals,” says Steve Alvarez proudly.  “And you know what? Now people are realizing that’s the best way.”  

You can find Alvarez Organic Farms at all of our currently operating farmers markets in the University District, West Seattle, Capitol Hill, and Columbia City neighborhoods. Farms like Hilario’s have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider donating to the Good Farmer Fund, our emergency relief fund there to help farmers get back on their feet.