Justin Miller is the co-owner of Twin Peaks Orchard with his wife, Camelia Enriquez. Twin Peaks Orchard is a mixed fruit and vegetable farm that’s been in his wife’s family for four generations and has been certified organic since 2011. On the farm, he and his wife Camelia are dedicated to maintaining healthy soil and water through practices like composting, cover cropping, crop rotation, beneficial insects, and a gravity-fed irrigation system supporting water conservation.
Miller lends his farming experience to other farmers through the USDA’s Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP), which is a nationwide initiative to provide mentorship, technical assistance, and wrap-around support to transitioning and existing organic producers. He currently advises two farming mentees.
“It really revitalizes my passion for organic farming,” Miller says. “When I first started, and I’ve seen the same with my mentees, it was difficult to get information because you don’t have all the connections you need to really farm yet.” The farmers that Miller mentors have told him how much they appreciate having someone to advise them. “They can just pick up the phone and call when they have questions. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he says. “TOPP is a very positive program because of that.”
Miller credits TOPP with providing an especially valuable form of assistance by connecting farmers. “There’s no better technical assistance than what comes from an actual farmer who has to make decisions based on the science, the financials, the marketing, and all the ups and downs of farming,” he says. “There’s a greater trust for the information you get from another farmer than you’d get from an academic. It’s real world, real dollars. Advice coming from another farmer is the most valuable form of technical assistance.”
He also credits strong farmer networks with creating another benefit. “As farmers we can feel kind of isolated,” Miller says, “so it’s nice to know you’re not alone. You look at farmers, there’s an above-average rate of suicide and it’s a dangerous occupation. To have someone to talk to, whether things are going well or whether you’re struggling, is critical.”
Contemplating the transition of a farm to organic can be another major hurdle for farmers. “It’s an unknown,” Miller explains. “I come from the corporate world, and I can say farming is completely unique. It’s the one business where you can do everything right and Mother Nature is still the ultimate determiner of success or failure each year. There’s a much bigger risk in farming than in conventional businesses. You can’t just make a quick adjustment and go back to your old way of doing it, since you don’t have the same liquidity and steady income as other types of jobs. If farmers are used to doing it one way, and organic certification means they need to do it a new way, that’s where the fear comes in. Everyone’s one bad storm or pest outbreak away from failure. It’s a big risk.”
Through his mentorship connection, Miller has been able to guide mentees through the complicated process of transitioning land to organic and navigating the certification process. “I was able to help break down the barrier of fear and show them it wasn’t as complicated or overwhelming as they originally thought,” he says. “By having someone’s advice who had to go through the same process, it allowed them to move through it with comfort and without fear.”
Miller places great value on being able to farm organically. “There are a lot of facets to organic that make it important,” he says. “There are the basics, like the nutrient value of organic is much better and that’s proven scientifically. The challenge I give people is taste, like if you put an organic and conventional banana side by side, the organic banana will taste much more like a banana. Then there’s the environmental impact; you don’t have nitrogen runoff polluting our water and soil, you’re not using forever chemicals, you’re sequestering carbon, and you’re being a good steward over your land.”
“But the most important aspect,” Miller says, “is the people who live and work on the farm. With organic, you’re not being exposed to those chemicals where you’ve seen the past generation of people who worked with them develop Parkinson’s and different cancers. It’s much safer. There’s a cost for everything; for cheap conventional produce it may not be in dollars to the consumer, but it may be in the cost of the health of the people who are producing it. For me, it’s about protecting my family and myself, all the people on my farm, and my community.”
When TOPP concludes at the end of 2026, Miller recommends that similar programs should be funded in the U.S. “No one stretches a dollar better than a farmer,” he says. “When you fund farmers, you’re getting the most bang for your buck.”
“There’s nothing more American than farming,” Miller continues. “That’s what our country was built on. And there’s nothing more human than farming; that’s what civilization’s built on. It’s important for our national security. Having a strong community food supply is huge. Organic farming builds healthy soils, and that’s what’s going to allow us in the future to keep growing our food production as populations get bigger. Organic farmers tend to be better stewards of the soil and the water, so you get a better long-term result. I think grant money like this is money well spent.”
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The Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP) is a nationwide initiative supporting transitioning and existing organic producers across six geographic regions of the U.S. (including the West/Southwest region, which CCOF leads).
Interested in participating in TOPP mentorship? This program is funded through 2026 by the TOPP program.
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Want to support the next generation of organic growers? provide funding, 1:1 organic technical assistance, access to mentorship, and business training opportunities to farmers transitioning to organic over a three-year period.
