A Vision for Micro-Farms With Krystine McInnes

Future of Food - Let's Eat Better for Ourselves and the Planet

Krystine McInnes was a developer passionate about sustainable building methods. She liked the idea of edible landscaping. She started to think about the best delivery systems for these ideas. An urban farm started looking like a good way to combine them in a package that had a low energy impact and which benefited the world.

What if starting a micro-farm in an urban location were easier? A lot easier?

One day while thinking about this, Krystine went by a farm that was for sale just to have a look around. She instantly realized that it was the right place to be. She has pointed her future at farming.

The journey has been incredibly hard. She discovered that there was no “farmer instruction manual.” Knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, and since she does not come from a farming family, she had to hunt for information on her own. Resources and data were hard to discover. Most small organic farmers, she learned, lost money in the first year. If they survived into their second year, it was because they had navigated a learning curve steep as a hockey stick.

With Grown Here Farms she has resolved to create a business model and an example for other micro-farms. She is building a digital dashboard for farmers to track prices, reporting, and worker wages. She has a vision for a replicable business model that can lead to the success of the small farmer.

In our conversation, we get into how a successful organic farm must turn away from being a mere commodity and toward a beloved brand. We discuss Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and what it means for the small farmer and you.

Key Takeaways

• The number of small farms is shrinking while the farmer population is aging. Who will grow our food?
• We know amazingly little about the farm-to-table supply chain, and large food producers and distributors would like to keep us in the dark.
• Your fresh fruit and vegetables travel an average of 1500 miles to get to you.