With cold weather in the forecast, organic farmer Eduardo Rivera was facing crunch time.

By noon one day early in October, he had picked about 300 pounds of hot peppers from his vegetable farm in rural Stillwater. Half would go to Surly Brewing, one of Rivera’s biggest clients; the rest to local food co-ops.

Those paying customers, he hopes, will help him change the face of farming.

Rivera, who grew up in Mexico, owns Sin Fronteras (“without borders”), a 3½-acre farm whose goal is to provide organic produce for low-income Latinos. He began the business — which is tucked behind Axdahl’s Garden Farm and Greenhouse off Manning Avenue in Grant — in 2014. He rents the land from a local farmer.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture 2012 census showed that 50 percent of agricultural workers in the U.S. were Latino, but only 3 percent of farms were operated or owned by Latinos.

According to the survey, there were 74,542 farmers in Minnesota in 2012 who were principal operators of farms. Of those, 339 identified themselves as Spanish, Hispanic or Latino.

“There are a lot of us farming, but … not a lot of us own land,” Rivera said. “A lot of people work for people who own land. I’m trying to empower my community and show that we are here and that we do farm — we’re just not at the forefront. I’m trying to show, through this process, that this is the face (of farming). You don’t see it all the time, but this is who is harvesting your food, cooking your food, and this is what we look like.”

About 60 percent of Sin Fronteras’ business is wholesale; he delivers to restaurants and food co-ops twice a week. The rest is sold through a community-supported agriculture program and at farmers’ markets. In 2015, he had six CSA shares; this year, he had 20. Thirteen of his CSA members are families of color or mixed race, he said.

“I definitely look for ways to provide more people of color and low-income Latinos with access to what you see here,” he said.

Among the items grown at Sin Fronteras: parsley; lemon verbena; indigenous herbs; spinach; lettuces; purple basil; Thai basil; bell peppers; peas; garlic; oats; buckwheat; rainbow chard; orange, purple, red, yellow and white carrots; and seven types of cherry tomatoes.

Rivera’s five-year business plan calls for him owning a farm in 2018. His 10-year plan includes opening a farm-to-table restaurant that specializes in Mexican food.

“Not having any kind of resources or infrastructure or capital, I have to grow for four years to get the numbers and then apply for a loan to buy my farm,” he said. “I’m going to rent one more year, and then I hope to be able to buy my own place. I don’t see myself doing anything else.”

Before opening Sin Fronteras in Grant, Rivera farmed in North Branch and Hugo. He said he’d like to stay in the St. Croix River Valley, but he’s not sure that will be possible. “It’s beautiful here, but it’s also very expensive,” he said.

Once he owns his land, Rivera said he will be able to grow in the winter months too. “I want to invest in infrastructure to be able to do things year-round,” he said. “There’s a guy in Detroit Lakes who grows peaches in a greenhouse that is passive-solar. There’s a lot of things you could be doing in the winter too.”

FAMILY ROOTS IN FARMING

Rivera’s maternal grandfather, Martin Castruita, taught him how to farm in Zacatecas, Mexico. His grandfather grew maize, black beans, pinto beans, apricots, peaches, quinze, limes, lemons, figs, grapes, tomatoes and carrots.

“As a kid, I didn’t really have much in terms of possession of toys or a television,” he said. “Your playground was outside. I never needed anything, honestly. We had chickens, we had our animals, we had fruit, we had water. I just grew up very lucky. I feel like I took that for granted for a time, but now I’m glad I’m doing this.”

When he was 10, Rivera and his family moved to Arizona. He farmed in Arizona and moved to Minnesota six years ago after he met and married Sammie Ardito; the couple lives in Minneapolis and has a 6-year-old daughter.

“After we had our daughter, I realized I needed to be more connected to the land and show her how to grow her own food,” Rivera said. “I worked at a couple of farms and then jumped into it myself.”

It is difficult work. Rivera regularly starts working at 5 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. and sometimes works 15-hour days. “But you get to be outside, you get to enjoy the sun, sometimes rain — a lot of it this year, but it’s all nice,” he said.

Heavy rain this year affected some crops in the state, but Rivera said it wasn’t a problem at Sin Fronteras.

“Worrying about or trying to control weather patterns is not really in my interest,” he said. “I just try to grow like my grandfather did — growing the organic way, before it was called organic — without irrigation, just having the cycles of the weather. I think it is fine that it rains a lot. It adds an inconvenience, but if you’re trying to be a farmer, I don’t think you can be worrying about rain. It’s going to come no matter what.”

Even a hail storm at the beginning of the growing season turned out to be a good thing, he said.

“My pepper plants got shocked for about a month, but they were the ones that did the best,” he said. “They took that punishment at the beginning of the season and then, all of a sudden, they kind of outgrew everything. They produced a lot of peppers on those plants.”

Rivera said he plans for weather and pest issues by planting a little extra each year; his biggest headaches have four paws.

“Gophers. You can’t really do anything about them,” he said. “I feel like I’m the one invading their space, so it’s kind of my fault.”

Photographer Jean Pieri contributed to this report.