Meet Sarah Hawkins, our Solano County Farmbudsman
Sarah acts as a liaison between agricultural businesses in Solano County and the local government, with the goal of facilitating projects and helping to add value to agricultural endeavors. This position is an ideal combination of her passions for agricultural businesses and economic development.

After graduating from the University of California at Davis with a degree in Political Science-Public Policy, she worked for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in Washington, D.C. on issues such as water infrastructure, sustainable fisheries, and compliance with federal laws. Later, she worked as a community liaison in Contra Costa County working with members of the community to resolve issues with local government and bringing the stakeholders together.

Her experiences also include owning and operating a small dairy goat farm here in Solano County where she developed one of the best breeding programs in the country as evidenced by producing the 2015 National Champion and the 2015 Total Producer for the breed. She also started a skin care products business using ingredients from her farm. This led to establishing an agricultural producer business, working through the various regulations to sell the products at the various farmers’ markets, and the marketing challenges that follow.

Additionally, she has experimented with various permaculture techniques, dry-land water harvesting to help our groundwater, establishing farm perimeter hedgerows to encourage native pollinators, pest control, and mitigating pasture runoff in to a seasonal creek.

Solano County currently has a joint operating agreement with Humboldt State University Sponsored Programs Foundation’s Northern California Small Business Development Center (Norcal SBDC) to administer the Farmbudsman program that serves farmers, ranchers and agriculture-related businesses in Solano County. The program objective is to facilitate and expedite the development of promising value-added agricultural projects.