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40 farmers under 40: Readers' choice

You nominated your favorite young farmers, and here they are: Forty of the nation's brightest green thumbs, quietly nurturing a food revolution from their own back yards.
By Matt Hickman
Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 8:30 AM EST
Read more: FARMING & AGRICULTURE, MNN LISTS, ORGANIC FARMING

Photo: Kangah/iStockPhoto
After we published the original roundup of "40 farmers under 40," it became abundantly clear that, from coast to coast, America loves its young farmers (and the food they produce). So we invited you to tell us about your favorite farmers under 40 — idealistic, eco-friendly, under-the-hill agrarians who are helping you bring home healthier bacon, as well as beets, lettuce, organic milk and more. And you responded.
 
We dug through a bounty of votes and e-mails from across the country, then we dug up some dirt on 40 of your nominations to create this inaugural "readers' choice" edition in our "40 farmers under 40" series. We've numbered the entries to help you navigate through the list, but they're in no particular order — this is an egalitarian compilation, not a ranking. These farmers all bring their own skills, backgrounds and crop varieties to different communities, and the real winners are the locavores who get to eat all the natural grub they grow.
 
Like the first time around, this list encompasses a motley crew, consisting of authors, activists, educators, entrepreneurs, parents, siblings, sons, daughters, plenty of Californians, and an Iowan raising postmodern pigs on his organic family farm. The farms themselves are just as eclectic, ranging from 400-acre spreads to backyard plots, Brooklyn rooftops and everything in between. 
 
Now, let's get farming ... 
 
1) Charles "Chaz" Holt, 32
Kingston, Ga.
 
Born in the late '70s on a small North Georgia dairy farm, Chaz Holt was hooked on farming from the get-go. After his family switched from a dairy to a beef-cow, poultry and hay farm, he began to understand that if a person stays in agriculture, he has to be able to evolve with the markets while maintaining a personal moral direction.
 
After graduating from the University of Wyoming with a bachelor's degree in agricultural science, Holt moved to the Willamette Valley of Oregon, where he served as an agronomist and crop advisor. He worked with more than 30 different crop types, ranging from cherries and hazelnuts to turf grass and corn silage and far beyond.
 
It was in Oregon that Holt learned organic farming methods, direct marketing to consumers, and how to spot trends and quickly meet demand. He then moved to Montana to manage Simplot Soilbuilders, a large, conventional farm-service company. After a year of disgust at the way farms were suffering as the corporate farm-service industry was still booming, Holt quit and started his own all-organic farm and farm-supply business.
 
For three years Holt grew along with the organic-farming industry. He was elected to the Montana Organic Association as the vice chair for two years and was one of five state "agriculture bio-based innovation" coordinators funded by the Montana Department of Agriculture to assist agriculture producers in adding value to their existing operations. He also holds a current certified crop advisor certificate from the American Society of Agronomy. From there, Holt and his family moved back to Georgia to live on the family farm in a sustainable and organic way.
 
2) Novella Carpenter, 36
Oakland, Calif.
 
Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, started urban farming in Seattle 10 years ago when she first got some chickens and bees and plowed up her parking strip to plant fava beans and kale. After moving to the Bay Area, she began squat farming on a derelict lot next to her apartment in the middle of a rough part of Oakland. She's raised fruits and veggies, chickens, bees, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs and goats.
 
Sales aren't the main point of Ghost Town Farm — Carpenter regularly gives away produce to her neighbors, barters with locals and sometimes sells to underground restaurants. She also runs an urban feed store/biofuel station in Berkeley with four other women, where they sell feed and teach classes about keeping chickens, bees and rabbits in the city. Lately, she's become obsessed with goats and goat cheese, remembering fondly the goat-milking scene in Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast.
 
3) Alex Needham, 28
4) Alison Parker, 30
Marseilles, Ill.
 
While living in Austin, Texas, Alex Needham worked in a restaurant and Alison Parker worked for an environmental nonprofit. Both became increasingly aware of and interested in food politics, and decided to tackle their interests in a hands-on way by interning at a farm. Collectively and separately since, they've worked on organic farms from Oregon to Wisconsin to Texas to Central America. Both have also worked with urban farms and have helped with the startup of school gardens in low-income areas. Last season, they were married on the farm where they once interned in southern Wisconsin. 
 
In 2009, Parker and Needham decided to take a leap of faith and start their own venture, Radical Root Farm, in northern Illinois. There they run an organic community-supported agriculture (CSA) program and market farm, selling to the metro Chicago area, and try to limit the farm's fossil footprint by using mostly hand tools. They grow a diversified collection of vegetables, including many heirlooms, as well as medicinal herbs. Parker teaches plant medicine workshops, and the couple also plans to make their farm into a working permaculture model, eventually teaching urban permaculture workshops in Chicago.
 
5) Juan "JP" Perez, 26
Salinas, Calif.
 
Three years ago, Juan Perez (pictured, right) convinced his father, Pablo (left), to enroll with him in the Agriculture and Land Based Training Association's (ALBA) Programa Educativa para Pequenos Agricultores (PEPA), a program that trains aspiring small farmers in sustainable production methods, as well as marketing techniques. Pablo had farmed before, growing conventional raspberries and flowers on five acres of leased land in California's Central Valley. But Juan wanted to try his hand at organics, and he wanted to do it as a family. Upon completion of the PEPA program in April 2006, Juan and his father leased a small plot of land from ALBA and named their farm J&P Organics.
 
Juan spends most of his time cultivating, harvesting, working at farmers markets and delivering CSA boxes. He's also responsible for the bulk of the farm's marketing and direct sales. He and his family grow a wide variety of crops, including artichokes, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, garlic, kale, heirloom tomatoes, onions, potatoes and more.
 
Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Juan delivers as many as 200 boxes across Monterey County and the Bay Area. He says both he and his CSA members value the personal interaction that community-supported agriculture provides. Members tell him what they liked best in previous boxes and share how they prepared their produce, and every week Juan tucks a newsletter containing simple recipes as well as a brief farm update into each box.
 
Juan anticipates expanding his acreage and applying his educational experience to the practice of sustainable farming. "I've been talking to my parents and the thing is, we want to buy our own farm — I don't know how many acres — and raise chickens, cows, pigs and have orchards — apple trees, peaches, cherries and pears. I can see that happening in a couple of years."
 
6) Stacey Murphy, 35
Brooklyn, N.Y.
 
Stacey was born and raised in a suburb of Detroit and spent many hours in her mom's garden, picking snap peas and eating them before she could bring them inside. She has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a vehicle dynamics engineer for Ford (she also raced cars for Ford, including a Formula One car). She also has a master's of architecture degree and enjoyed working on public projects in New York City.
 
Murphy founded BK Farmyards in April, and this growing season is her first as an urban farmer. BK Farmyards partners with developers, homeowners and city agencies that want to transform idle land to farmland. This season, BK Farmyards has several backyard farms in Ditmas Park and is starting a CSA in that neighborhood. Next season, the company will continue its expansion of farms in Ditmas Park and is working with several developers to convert three acres to farmland around Brooklyn.
 
The mission of BK Farmyards is to connect landholders with farmers. Each neighborhood will have a slightly different agenda depending on the people involved. In Gowanus, BK Farmyards is working with a developer who wants to build a chef community and cafe around a working farm. In Bed-Stuy, it's working with a farmer who wants to supply affordable produce to bodegas. 
 
7) Tricia Borneman, 34
8) Tom Murtha, 36
Perkasie, Pa.
 
Tom and Tricia Murtha met in Philadelphia 12 years ago and started on their farming journey together, learning by doing. They were both raised in suburban Philly — he across the Delaware River in Haddon Heights, N.J., and she in Bucks County, Pa., where they now live and farm. The couple met after college and fell into "farming" after reclaiming an abandoned lot near the warehouse where they lived in Philly. Tricia also worked with a couple through City Year doing organic gardening in North Philadelphia's public schools.
 
"We just loved it," Tricia says. "Tom would come help out after a long day of house painting and sink his hands into the soil and dream of a life working side by side. Gardening and farming spoke to our ideals and the way of life we dreamed of in so many ways."
 
Tom and Tricia left Philadelphia and embarked on a farming journey that took them from an internship in Connecticut (where they lived in a tiny old chicken coop), to a farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley (where they lived in a geodesic dome), to northern New Jersey (Genesis Farm), to a farm in Bucks County (where they lived in a barn loft) and finally to where they are now. Each farm they worked on was a little different: One marketed solely through farmers markets, one just via restaurants and one only using a CSA. This allowed Tricia and Tom to amass a wealth of experiences as well as the confidence to embark on their own. 
 
The couple formed a unique arrangement with their current landowners and created Blooming Glen Farm with their help. They rent the land and the house, and they're currently working with the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture to develop a long-term agreement with the landowners. 
 
"Many young farmers face the issue of how to get into farming if you can't afford to buy land, so we hope to create some sort of model that others can look at," Tricia says. "The land we are on is preserved for agricultural use, but the area we are in grows more houses than farmers, despite its rich agricultural heritage."
 
In four years, Blooming Glen Farm has grown from five to 20 acres in cultivation and boasts a CSA with more than 300 families. Tricia and Tom also attend two farmers markets and do some wholesale. The couple had five young farm interns working with them over the summer season, which Tricia found vastly important: "We can still vividly remember what it was like to be interns ourselves, and we love to share with other young people what we have learned in hope that more farms will sprout up around the country because of it."
 
9) Annie Novak, 26
10) Ben Flanner, 28
Brooklyn, N.Y.
 
Rooftop Farms, a 6,000-square-foot organic produce operation on top of a three-story warehouse in Brooklyn, is a beacon for urban farmers everywhere. The new but already high-profile farm is the product of a coalition between Goode Green, a green-roof design and installation company, and two young urban farmers, Annie Novak and Ben Flanner.
 
After Flanner quit his desk job at an online stock-trading company earlier this year, he teamed up with Novak, a seasoned farmer, and they contacted Goode Green about setting up their own farm in the city. The company was able to hook up Flanner and Novak with spare roof space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and used a crane to haul 200,000 pounds of soil on top of the building.  
 
Since its start in April 2009, Rooftop Farms already serves local restaurants such as Eat and Marlow & Sons, as well as a weekly farm stand. Flanner and Novak also host two apiaries on their roof, more than 30 varieties of produce, and workshops designed to spread urban farming throughout New York.
 
MORE FARMERS: Check out farmers 11-21 >


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Comments(22)

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Posted By Uncle B - Mon, Oct 26 2009 at 3:46 PM EST

Old Gardener Survivor

Heart braking fall in the dollar, astounding shift in American Capital to support the Asian Manufacturing and Heavy Industries, in "Yuan" on the Beijing. Shanghai, Hang Seng markets, sending many Americans into unemployability in the new computer driven age, their strong arms at their sides, unable to cope with the "Mouse" and keyboard, and not paying enough to feed their larger appetites anyway! Astounding refusals for fair and decent health care by corporate interests, their bureaucratic,.... More

Posted By foodie4life - Wed, Oct 14 2009 at 5:15 PM EST

Yay Radical Root!

They are my favorite farmers! Viva Radical Root farm!

Posted By Jinjee - Fri, Oct 02 2009 at 2:08 AM EST

my favorite farmers...

I am tempted to keep them my own secret, but my favorite farmers - I don't know their ages though -- are BD of BDs Organics in Ojai/Carpinteria, Robin of Mud Creek Ranch in Santa Paula, and Vince in Filmore -- but I can't tell you his ranch name because I forget, -- but maybe that's good because I get my 10 crates of oranges every 2 weeks from him which my family couldn't live without! -- We juice them and its like drinking candy! Thank God for Organic Farmers!! That's great you are giving them.... More

Posted By Hey! - Wed, Oct 07 2009 at 6:08 AM EST

Sell Bradn Shoes Jordan Nikes

Hey!

www.jordanmadeinchina.com

how onlangs doet u?
I zou u willen introduceren een zeer goed bedrijf en zijn
Het kan u al soortenMerk van Schoenen aanbieden die handtassen en T-shirts enz. kleden ........
You kan wat tijd vergen om een controle te hebben, moeten er zijn iets het interesseren

Posted By Joel_BC - Tue, Sep 29 2009 at 6:26 PM EST

A good place for the like-minded

Great stuff!

Hey, for those who are interested in farming & a rural home, there's a good, pretty young site on the internet with both on-line magazine dimensions and forums you can post on. It's called The Rural Independent.

Magazine:
http://www.theruralindependent.com/

Forums:
.... More

Posted By Manda Allgood - Tue, Sep 29 2009 at 4:34 PM EST

Congrats!!! (especally #5)

My husband and I are one of the 200 that JP delivers a weekly veggie box to and I can attest to everything here and I am SO happy to see him on this list :)

Posted By The Gourmet Girl - Sat, Sep 26 2009 at 4:38 PM EST

Farm(er) Appeal

Wonderful article and encouraging for those of us that love farms and farmers. The fact that there are 'winners' from the city as well as the country should encourage anyone to pursue their dreams of digging in the dirt.
I just met a former professional chef, trained in France, who after 25 years decided farming was what he wanted to really do.
Fascinating people, that we can learn a lot from.
Thanks for the post.

Posted By meleana - Fri, Sep 25 2009 at 6:16 PM EST

YEAY!

great feature and for those of you who missed the first 40 under 40 make sure to check out farmer #40 Severine von Tscharner Fleming's thegreenhorns.net a documentary film about this subject!
hopefully next 40 under 40 will make it out to Hawaii and feature some of our great taro growers or our Oahu island gem- MA'O farms!

Posted By trevor lauten - Fri, Sep 25 2009 at 12:03 PM EST

when i was a kid

i remember as a kid in ohio i use to have to help on my parents farm it is hard work, with little pay off but the end result always makes you feel good because you took care of something and watched it grow you raised it now you can eat it and nothing is more promising then that. http://www.rainbowofluv.com

Posted By Rusty Wallace - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 8:18 PM EST

Excellent picks

Wow, absolutely fabulous pics! Well done!

RW
www.privacy-web.pro.tc

Posted By JIm Davis - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 8:16 PM EST

Wow

Enter your comments here

Posted By Titus Peachey - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 3:25 PM EST

Article of Interest

Enter your comments here Greetings! I thought your reader's might be interested in the op-ed from the Philadelphia Inquirer on September 22, 2009. The link is here.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090922_Battle_zone_s_lethal_har...

I also have a WORD version of the document which you could post if you would like. You may contact me at: tmp@mcc.org

Thanks!

Titus

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 3:03 PM EST

Farming Harder Than it Looks

Y'all are right, it looks "glamorous" but farming is one of the hardest jobs one can have. I know, my husband is a full-time fresh produce farmer and I work professionally with all types of farmers in my county. He does it because he has a passion for it, and we wanted to raise our children on a farm (we both were raised on farms).

Picture the "non-glamorous" parts: He's up at 4 am every day from March through November. He works until dark or after, every day, rain, hail, sleet, shine. .... More

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 6:32 PM EST

Farming is HARD!

I loved your post. I too am a wife of a organic and certified sustainable farmer. My husband works incredibly hard for very little monetary reward, thank goodness that isn't our ultimate goal. I can say with certainty that we have experienced the harshness of nature and the blessings. I wish people could understand all the hard work and passion that farmers, especially smaller famers, put into their farms. I don't think people would complain that a tomato cost $1.00 if they "really" knew the.... More

Posted By Steve Johnson - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 1:40 PM EST

You Think My Tractor's Sexy?

No doubt about it, organic farming has become the coolest, most hip activity idies can do these days! From these best farmers in the country, we can see that driving a BMW 2002, listening to country music, and farming are all now supercool!

Posted By woody - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 12:30 PM EST

starting a farm

does anyone know how much land is enough to start a small CSA? and how do these farmers get the word out? i'm hoping to eventually make money off an organic vegetable farm that i'm starting, but i only have about half an acre.

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 6:35 PM EST

YOU CAN DO IT

Not positive but a 1/2 acre to an acre is a great start, just plan well! Our first farm was totally 2 acres, and we only cultivated 1/2 at any given time. You can make it work. My advice don't take on more members than you can feed.

Posted By davis - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 11:39 AM EST

farmers

they're physically working all day, getting a tan and growing healthy foods. sounds lik ea pretty sweet lifestyle (not saying it isn't hard -- just saying it's got its perks!)

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 10:47 AM EST

40 Famers Under 40

Thanks for the new list.

Posted By Grey Garvin - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 10:43 AM EST

Love stories like this

These farmers are amazing...and they are a great alternative to the factory farms that Michael Pollen writes of...we get great food...and we save the land around our cities.

Posted By Sean Roberts - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 10:41 AM EST

Young farmers

It's good to see another batch of fresh, farm-loving faces -- more innovation and energy aimed at working the land. Thanks for the story.

Posted By Phil Signet - Thu, Sep 24 2009 at 10:41 AM EST

When did farming become so cool....

Forget Hell's Kitchen....maybe 40 Acres & a (Rowdy) Mule is the next big reality show? LOL I have to admit that the idea of chucking it all and becoming a farmer has real appeal right now. Though my guess is that this job is a lot harder than it looks.

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