My advice for aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs

One could say the food system is ripe with opportunity. 

While climate change is – or should be – at the forefront of our minds, it’s easy to think that the food system is complex, full of challenges, and rife with social inequities. Sometimes overwhelmingly so. But those of us who work in it are also presented with opportunities for positive transformation every day. 

I’ve had the pleasure of working on many issues in many ways, from leading regenerative agriculture initiatives at a major e-commerce food company to directing research at the Rodale Institute, and I’m here to tell you that it’s necessary to tackle the challenges to unlock the possibilities that will build a more resilient and equitable food future. It’s not only possible but necessary.

If you feel the pull to make an impact on the world through the food system, hear me say this: We need you. We need your ideas. We need your determination.

I’ve written about how I decided to start my own consulting firm, as well as parenthood and owning a business. Here, I share the experiences that led to starting my own venture and a few tidbits of advice in hopes that you feel a little more supported and a little less alone in your search to do work that you love and make the world a better place.

A nonlinear career path

My career path hasn’t been predictable, but I knew one thing: I wanted to do my part in addressing climate change and ultimately helping people get good, quality food on their tables. I’ve tried different things and worked in various parts of the food supply chain, from supporting beginning farmers to tackling food waste reduction at the corporate level. Along the way, I’ve learned what works for me, what I didn’t like, and what I needed to change to make my work more sustainable… all of which were valuable and helped me move onto the next step of my career. It’s just as important to find out what you don’t like as what you do like. 

When you think of someone who deals with climate change and the food system, you are probably thinking of a scientist in a lab coat or a farmer in a dusty field. The truth is that there are so many ways to weave this “why” into your career. 

It’s been a bit of a winding path, but it all stems from an enduring desire to help our society address climate change, both by reducing emissions and by shifting production and distribution systems to more resilient models. About a third of global greenhouse gas emissions are tied to the food system, so very early on in my career I progressed down the slippery slope from forests and trees to soil to agriculture. Subsequently, I’ve worked more on the food side of the system and have now found a way to work across the gamut from farm to fork as a consultant. 

What I learned: Embrace a nonlinear career path. Each step is getting you closer to the impact you want to make and helping you decide how to do it.

My jobs before starting my business

My work at the Rodale Institute further solidified my belief in the power of regenerative practices. At that time, the big push was tillage reduction using a cover crop-based no-till approach. Rodale is focused on organic agriculture, but we were also working with conventional farmers to have them try out this cover crop-based no-till system. Even if they cleaned up a bit with some herbicide or burned down the cover crop with herbicide instead of mechanically terminating it with a roller-crimper or a flail mower, they still saw benefits of living soil cover through the winter and early in the growing season. We also did a bunch of mycorrhizae research on organic and conventional farms, as well as pest management research on black cutworms. 

None of the biologicals we used worked very well, but we replicated the experiment in many fields across several farms. There was one field that I’ll always remember. It got a big flush of moths just like all the others, but there was very little damage to the corn seedlings in that field and we could not find very many caterpillars. I remember standing there and trying to imagine what must have happened. Then, I finally noticed that birds were swooping all around. This field happened to be next to a creek with a buffer area of trees and other vegetation where birds liked to roost, and those birds sure seemed to be taking care of the pest management in that field. I wish I could have done more research to document that phenomenon, but life took me to other places. Still, that memory is one I often come back to in conversations about organic practices.

“Organic” is not about developing the next, more effective OMRI-listed pesticide. It’s about supporting all the life in the system to provide checks and balances to the entire agroecosystem for a healthy and productive farm. Much of that means engaging on the ground with growers to truly understand their operating contexts and consult with them on what makes sense for them. Now, as a board member, I am so proud to see the Rodale Institute doing just that type of high-touch organic agronomic work through their own consulting arm. 

During my time with Penn State Extension’s beginning farmer training program, the goal was to bring new people into farming in a 12-county region covering southeastern Pennsylvania. We ran a series of 19 workshops and short courses to equip new or prospective farmers with the skills needed to run a successful farming business – everything from business planning and food safety to soil health and pest management, as well as specialties like beekeeping or sheep shearing. As I recently commiserated with Stephanie Walsh, who is leading Dairy Farmers of America’s ClimateSmart project, this remains a huge gap. Particularly knowledge transfer related to systems pushed aside amidst the rise of corn and soybeans, like grazing or other diversified systems. Stephanie quipped, “Everyone who knows how to graze or make good grazing plans is 100 years old!” This is true - we STILL need more folks to preserve and transfer this knowledge to the next generation of land managers.

Then, at Blue Apron, I led the efforts to develop a regenerative agriculture framework. This was pioneering work at the time, defining what "regenerative" meant for each food category and navigating the complexities of implementation within a rapidly growing business.

My role shifted from one focused on farm direct and specialty product procurement to much more of a traditional role overseeing supplier management with a team of sourcing or category managers, food cost management, and reporting (the purchasing work done by a team of buyers in conjunction with partners in finance). Perhaps the one unique bit was a team called Ingredient Optimization that worked to implement various food waste reduction initiatives that ultimately helped the company reduce food waste by well over 50%. 

My team was tasked with developing the company’s regenerative agriculture framework. Our initial work was to define what regenerative meant for each category of food the company purchased: produce, dairy, grocery items, and meats. This was back in 2015 before every food company and their mother had announced regenerative agriculture initiatives. So, we were out reviewing existing standards, speaking with suppliers, and then figuring out what was feasible in terms of implementation and verification, all while the company was growing rapidly with a very perishable product portfolio that literally turned over every week. It was hard enough to get regular broccoli in the door at the right volume and freshness, let alone the Fairy Tale eggplants, salt and pepper cucumbers, and other specialty items my team was responsible for planning with farmers and projecting availability for. One year, we were ultimately able to source about 30 million portions of dozens of different specialty produce items. I hired a brilliant young woman who built a great crop maturity tracker to help us use heat unit data to understand how the crops were maturing across the country and line that up with our weekly menu planning process with the culinary team. 

Working in different capacities across the food system gave me valuable experience that I draw upon every day in my own business. Of course, I refined my hard skills as a scientist. I also developed soft skills, like managing expectations, interpersonal communication, leading a team, and adaptability.

Even through these experiences, I wasn’t sure that I’d have my own business. Deciding to leave Blue Apron wasn’t easy, especially to walk away from the benefits and stability of such a job. But looking back, I value that experience for the skills it taught me and for the connections I made.

What I learned: Some people jump directly into their own business. For others, it takes years and working other jobs to make it happen. Figure out what you’re learning in your current job and how it might apply to your future business. There is always something to take with you to your next career step.

Innovation for data-driven food system solutions

Innovation sometimes means technology and sometimes it means adapting within your business.

Technology is a powerful tool for advancing sustainable agriculture. From precision agriculture to streamlining sustainability reporting for farmers, technology can empower data-driven decision-making and promote transparency throughout the food system.

There is a great opportunity to use technology to support better data-based decision-making. Whether that is in the production stage to better target or reduce use of inputs when managing pests or nutrients, or access the supply chain in terms of the social, environmental and animal welfare attributes consumers and regulators are increasingly looking to businesses to disclose, there are lots of opportunities to use our technological capabilities to advance and more just and sustainable food system. 

We’ve worked with Farm Action to help figure out how they could advocate for the next Farm Bill to advance more just outcomes. Grow Well is a private business. It’s organized as an LLC and an S-corp, so we’re not a policy advocacy organization, but we do technical work to support our clients more effectively in their policy work. For example, Farm Action called attention to the dwindling domestic produce industry and the Environmental Working Group addressed heavy metals in baby foods. 

I’m not a SNAP expert either, but being able to analyze how SNAP affects food security has become part of my job. Over the last 7 years or so, particularly federal money spent on food and ag has both ballooned and become much more volatile as the Trump Administration and then the Biden Administration broke with almost 90 years of policy precedent, which was the Farm Bill. This legislation, which Congress had passed every 5 years since the 1930s, is a great political compromise that ties together funding for agriculture with funding for food assistance programs, like SNAP and WIC. The MFP payments for farmers impacted by Trump’s trade war sent farm incomes to record highs. Then COVID-19 and all the PPP loans, many of which were collected by farmers, plus some changes in SNAP that improved the benefits and made them more accessible, staving off a massive food insecurity crisis when many people found themselves temporarily out of work. Then came inflation and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included another huge slug of extra Farm Bill money for agriculture. 

And so now, 2023 came and went and we’re a third of the way through 2024 and there is no clear emergence of a Farm Bill that looks capable of passing both the House and Senate. Farmers have been paid through all these other programs and record high commodity prices, but the food aid programs’ future is much more vulnerable now that the two have been decoupled. On top of this, many Republicans blame SNAP for the tight labor market and high cost of labor, which has further eroded support for the program, despite little to no evidence for this theory. In fact, post-COVID benefit cutbacks went into place and have already resulted in one of the sharpest increases in food insecurity in the last 35 years. 

What I learned: Don’t be afraid to be flexible in your business. Your skills are transferable and you have a lot to offer. And because you have specialized knowledge, don’t be surprised if you find yourself at the intersection of agriculture and advocacy.

Be brave!

So what advice do I have for aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs?

Take the problem you feel passionate about solving. Then find someone to be brave with. Try working on it for someone else for a little while at least to build your understanding and skills. But, once you feel you’re ready and have a solid plan, don’t be afraid to go for it.