156: Keri Fox on SPIN Farming

Keri Fox on SPIN Farming

Starting a farming business in an urban area and making it work.

Keri grew up on an organic farm in a small Saskatchewan community when organic wasn’t cool or trendy. After feeling like an outcast, and perceiving her parents as “poor,” she decided to pursue a more profitable career.  After getting her electrician journeyperson license, she ran an electrical contracting business for 8 years and made good money doing this. However, she felt her business was contributing to the destruction of the planet.  Knowing she needed a change, and having recently been introduced to permaculture, she took a leap of faith and sold her business to search for a lifestyle that would help heal the planet.

Keri took a series of permaculture based workshops over the next couple of years and eventually found herself in a SPIN farming workshop. Having found what she was looking for, she immediately returned home with a “crazy idea” to farm in the city. The idea got around and she started her new business with veggies in 8 different yards in return for a weekly box of vegetables, and sold the rest at the local farmers market. Now, at the end of 5th growing season, she works 1/3 of an acre including 7 outdoor garden spaces, one hoop house style greenhouse and an indoor micro-green operation, offers a salad box subscription that delivers to 9 restaurants as well as the weekly farmers market.

IN THIS PODCAST: Greg talks to Keri, a former electrician who quit to be a farmer because it was better for the planet. She tells why she left her successful business to run a small plot farm, and how she has developed that into quite the impressive and sustainable venture.  She describes how she rides her bike from plot to plot, sells to restaurants and farmers markets, and has a salad box subscription.  Farming with little-to-no land of your own can work, and she proves it in her story.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2016/11/12/keri-fox/ for show notes and links.